I
I was nine years old. It was in 1864, in the month of June at the
close of a warm, bright afternoon. I was at my studies in my room
as usual, having come in from the Lycee Bonaparte, and the outer
shutters were closed. We lived in the Rue Tronchet, near the
Madeleine, in the seventh house on the left, coming from the
church. Three highly-polished steps (how often have I slipped on
them!) led to the little room, so prettily furnished, all in blue,
within whose walls I passed the last completely happy days of my
life. Everything comes back to me. I was seated at my table,
dressed in a large black overall, and engaged in writing out the
tenses of a Latin verb on a ruled sheet divided into several
compartments. All of a sudden I heard a loud cry, followed by a
clamor of voices; then rapid steps trod the corridor outside my
room. Instinctively I rushed to the door and came up against a
man-servant, who was deadly pale, and had a roll of linen in his
hand. I understood the use of this afterwards. I had not to
question this man, for at sight of me he exclaimed, as though
involuntarily:
"Ah! M. Andre, what an awful misfortune!"
Then, regaining his presence of mind, he said:
"Go back into your room--go back at once!"
Before I could answer, he caught me up in his arms, rather threw
than placed me on the upper step of my staircase, locked the door
of the corridor, and walked rapidly away.
"No, no," I cried, flinging myself against the door, "tell me all;
I will, I must know." No answer. I shook the lock, I struck the
panel with my clenched fists, I dashed my shoulder against the
door. Vain was my frenzy! Then, sitting upon the lowest step, I
listened, in an agony of fear, to the coming and going of people
outside, who knew of "the awful misfortune," but what was it they
knew? Child as I was, I understood the terrible signification
which the servant's exclamation bore under the actual
circumstances. Two days previously, my father had gone out after
breakfast, according to custom, to the place of business which he
had occupied for over four years, in the Rue de la Victoire. He
had been thoughtful during breakfast, indeed for some months past
he had lost his accustomed cheerfulness. When he rose to go out,
my mother, myself, and one of the habitual frequenters of our
house, M. Jacques Termonde, a fellow student of my father's at the
Ecole de Droit, were at table. My father left his seat before
breakfast was over, having looked at the clock, and inquired
whether it was quite right.
"Are you in such a hurry, Cornelis?" asked Termonde.
"Yes," answered my father, "I have an appointment with a client who
is ill--a foreigner--I have to call on him at his hotel to procure
some important papers. He is an odd sort of man, and I shall not
be sorry to see something of him at closer quarters. I have taken
certain steps on his behalf, and I am almost tempted to regret
them."
And since then, no news! In the evening of that day, when dinner,
which had been put off for one quarter of an hour after another,
was over, and my father, who was always so methodical, so punctual,
had not come in, my mother began to betray increasing uneasiness,
and could not conceal from me that his last words dwelt upon her
mind. It was a rare occurrence for him to speak with misgiving of
his undertakings!
The night passed, then the next morning and afternoon, and once
more it was evening. My mother and I were once more seated at the
square table, where the cover laid for my father in front of his
empty chair gave, as it were, a form to our nameless dread.
My mother had written to M. Jacques Termonde, and he came after
dinner. I was sent away immediately, but not without my having had
time to remark the extraordinary brightness of M. Termonde's eyes,
which were blue, and usually shone coldly in his thin, sharp face.
He had fair hair and a beard best described as pale. Thus do
children take note of small details, which are speedily effaced
from their minds, but afterwards reappear, at the contact of life,
just as certain invisible marks come out upon paper when it is held
to the fire.
While begging to be allowed to remain, I was mechanically observing
the hurried and agitated turning and returning of a light cane--I
had long coveted it--held behind his back in his remarkably
beautiful hands. If I had not admired the cane so much, and the
fighting centaurs on its handle--a fine piece of Renaissance work--
this symptom of extreme disturbance might have escaped me. But,
how could M. Termonde fail to be disturbed by the disappearance of
his best friend? Nevertheless, his voice, a soft voice which made
all his phrases melodious, was quite calm.
"To-morrow," he said, "I will have every inquiry made, if Cornelis
has not returned; but he will come back, and all will be explained.
Depend on it, he went away somewhere on the business he told you
of, and left a letter for you to be sent by a commissionaire who
has not delivered it."
"Ah!" said my mother, "you think that is possible?"
How often, in my dark hours, have I recalled this dialogue, and the
room in which it took place--a little salon, much liked by my
mother, with hangings and furniture of some foreign stuff all
striped in red and white, black and yellow, that my father had
brought from Morocco; and how plainly have I seen my mother in my
mind's eye, with her black hair, her brown eyes, her quivering
lips. She was as white as the summer gown she wore that evening.
M. Termonde was dressed with his usual correctness, and I remember
well his slender and elegant figure.
I attended the two classes at the Lycee, if not with a light, at
least with a relieved heart. But, while I was sitting upon the
lower step of my little staircase, all my uneasiness revived. I
hammered at the door again, I called as loudly as I could; but no
one answered me, until the good woman who had been my nurse came
into my room.
"My father!" I cried, "where is my father?"
"Poor child, poor child," said nurse, and took me in her arms.
She had been sent to tell me the awful truth, but her strength
failed her. I escaped from her, ran out into the corridor, and
reached my father's bedroom before anyone could stop me. Ah! upon
the bed lay a rigid form covered by a white sheet, upon the pillow
a bloodless, motionless face, with fixed, wide-open eyes, for the
lids had not been closed; the chin was supported by a bandage, a
napkin was bound around the forehead; at the bed's foot knelt a
woman, still dressed in her white summer gown, crushed and helpless
with grief. These were my father and my mother.
I flung myself madly upon her, and she clasped me passionately,
with the piercing cry, "My Andre, my Andre!" In that cry there was
such intense grief, in that embrace there was such frenzied
tenderness, her heart was then so big with tears, that it warms my
own even now to think of it. The next moment she rose and carried
me out of the room, that I might see the dreadful sight no more.
She did this easily, her terrible excitement had doubled her
strength. "God punishes me! God punishes me!" she said over and
over again taking no heed of her words. She had always been given,
by fits and starts, to mystical piety. Then she covered my face,
my neck, and my hair with kisses and tears. May all that we
suffered, the dead and I, be forgiven you, poor mother, for the
sincerity of those tears at that moment!