The little caps are the ones I want, Marie. Be good enough to send me
the pattern of the braces, those of your own invention, you know. Thanks
for your coverlet, it is soft, flexible, warm, and charming, and Baby,
amid its white wool, looks like a rosebud hidden in the snow. I am
becoming poetical, am I not? But what would you have? My poor heart is
overflowing with joy. My son, do you understand that, dear, my own son?
When I heard the sharp cry of the little being whom my mother showed me
lying in her apron, it seemed to me that a burning thrill of love shot
through my veins. My old doctor’s bald head was close to me, I caught
hold of it and kissed him thrice.
“Calm yourself, my dear child,” said he.
“Doctor, be quiet, or I will kiss you again. Give me my baby, my love.
Are you quite sure it is a boy?”
And in the adjoining drawing-room, where the whole family were waiting,
I could hear amid the sound of kisses, the delightful words, “It is a
boy, a fine boy.”
My poor husband, who for twelve hours had not left me, overcome with
fatigue and emotion, was crying and laughing in one corner of the room.
“Come, nurse, swaddle him, quick now. No pins, confound it all, strings,
I will have strings. What? Give me the child, you don’t understand
anything about it.”
And the good doctor in the twinkling of an eye had dressed my child.
“He looks a Colonel, your boy. Put him into the cradle with... now be
calm, my dear patient... with a hot-water bottle to his feet. Not too
much fire, especially in the Colonel’s room. Now, no more noise, repose,
and every one out of the way.”
And as through the opening of the door which was just ajar, Aunt Ursula
whispered, “Doctor, let me come in; just to press her hand, doctor.”
“Confound it! every one must be off; silence and quiet are absolutely
necessary.” They all left.
“Octave,” continued the doctor, “come and kiss your wife now, and make
an end of it. Good little woman, she has been very brave.... Octave,
come and kiss your wife, and be quick about it if you don’t want me to
kiss her myself. I will do what I say,” he added, threatening to make
good his words.
Octave, buried in his child’s cradle, did not hear.
“Good, now he is going to suffocate my Colonel for me.”
My husband came at length. He held out his hand which was quivering with
emotion, and I grasped it with all my might. If my heart at that moment
did not break from excess of feeling, it was because God no doubt knew
that I should still have need of it.
You know, dear Marie, that before a child comes we love each other
as husband and wife, but we love each other on our own account, while
afterward we love each other on his, the dear love, who with his tiny
hand has rivetted the chain forever. God, therefore, allows the heart to
grow and swell. Mine was full; nevertheless, my baby came and took his
place in it. Yet nothing overflowed, and I still feel that there is room
for mother and yourself. You told me, and truly, that this would be
a new life, a life of deep love and delightful devotion. All my past
existence seems trivial and colorless to me, and I perceive that I am
beginning to live. I am as proud as a soldier who has been in battle.
Wife and mother, those words are our epaulettes. Grandmother is the
field-marshal’s baton.
How sweet I shall render the existence of my two loved ones!
How I shall cherish them! I am wild, I weep, I should like to kiss you.
I am afraid I am too happy.
My husband is really good. He holds the child with such pleasing
awkwardness, it costs him such efforts to lift this slight burden. When
he brings it to me, wrapped in blankets, he walks with slow and careful
steps. One would think that the ground was going to crumble away beneath
his feet. Then he places the little treasure in my bed, quite close to
me, on a large pillow. We deck Baby; we settle him comfortably, and if
after many attempts we get him to smile, it is an endless joy. Often my
husband and I remain in the presence of this tiny creature, our heads
resting on our hands. We silently follow the hesitating and charming
movements of his little rosy-nailed hand on the silk, and we find in
this so deep a charm that it needs a considerable counter-attraction to
tear us away.
We have most amusing discussions on the shape of his forehead and the
color of his eyes, which always end in grand projects for his future,
very silly, no doubt, but so fascinating.
Octave wants him to follow a diplomatic career. He says that he has
the eye of a statesman and that his gestures, though few, are full of
meaning. Poor, dear little ambassador, with only three hairs on your
head! But what dear hairs they are, those threads of gold curling at the
back of his neck, just above the rosy fold where the skin is so fine and
so fresh that kisses nestle there of themselves.
The whole of this little body has a perfume which intoxicates me and
makes my heart leap. What, dear friend, are the invisible ties which
bind us to our children? Is it an atom of our own soul, a part of our
own life, which animates and vivifies them? There must be something of
the kind, for I can read amid the mists of his little mind. I divine his
wishes, I know when he is cold, I can tell when he is hungry.
Do you know the most delightful moment? It is when after having taken
his evening meal and gorged himself with milk like a gluttonous little
kitten, he falls asleep with his rosy cheek resting on my arm. His limbs
gently relax, his head sinks down on my breast, his eyes close, and his
half-opened mouth continues to repeat the action of suckling.
His warm, moist breath brushes the hand that is supporting him. Then I
wrap him up snugly in my turned-up skirt, hide his little feet under
his clothes and watch my darling. I have him there, all to myself, on my
knees. There is not a quiver of his being that escapes me or that does
not vibrate in myself. I feel at the bottom of my heart a mirror that
reflects them all. He is still part of me. Is it not my milk that
nourishes him, my voice that hushes him off to sleep, my hand that
dresses and caresses, encourages and supports him? The feeling that I am
all in all for him further adds a delicious charm of protection to the
delight of having brought him into the world.
When I think that there are women who pass by such joys without turning
their heads. The fools!
Yes, the present is delightful and I am drunk with happiness. There is
also the future, far away in the clouds. I often think of it, and I do
not know why I shudder at the approach of a storm.
Madness! I shall love him so discreetly, I shall render the weight of my
affection so light for him, that why should he wish to separate from
me? Shall I not in time become his friend? Shall I not when a black down
shadows those rosy little lips, when the bird, feeling its wings grown,
seeks to leave the nest, shall I not be able to bring him back by
invisible ties to the arms in which he now is sleeping? Perhaps at that
wretched moment they call a man’s youth you will forget me, my little
darling! Other hands than mine perhaps will brush the hair away from
your forehead at twenty. Alas! other lips, pressed burningly where mine
are now pressed, will wipe out with a kiss twenty years of caresses.
Yes, but when you return from this intoxicating and fatiguing journey,
tired and exhausted, you will soon take refuge in the arms that once
nursed you, you will rest your poor, aching head where it rests now, you
will ask me to wipe away your tears and to make you forget the bruises
received on the way, and I shall give you, weeping for joy, the kiss
which at once consoles and fills with hope.
But I see that I am writing a whole volume, dear Marie. I will not
re-read it or I should never dare to send it to you. What would you
have? I am losing my head a little. I am not yet accustomed to all this
happiness.
Yours affectionately.