I remember little of the succeeding events. All was so trivial, so
insignificant, between that first vision of horror and the vision
of woe which came to me two years later, that, with one exception,
I hardly recall the intervening time.
In 1864, my father died; in 1866, my mother married M. Jacques
Termonde. The exceptional period of the interval was the only one
during which my mother bestowed constant attention upon me. Before
the fatal date my father was the only person who had cared for me;
at a later period there was no one at all to do so. Our apartment
in the Rue Tronchet became unbearable to us; there we could not
escape from the remembrance of the terrible event, and we removed
to a small hotel in the Boulevard de Latour-Maubourg. The house
had belonged to a painter, and stood in a small garden which seemed
larger than it was because other gardens adjoined it, and over-
shadowed its boundary wall and greenery. The center of the house
was a kind of hall, in the English style, which the former occupant
had used as a studio; my mother made this her ordinary sitting-
room.
Now, at this distance of time, I can understand my mother's
character, and recognize that there was something about her, which,
although it was very harmless, led her to exaggerate the outward
expression of all her feelings. While she occupied herself in
studying the attitudes by which her emotions were to be fittingly
expressed, the sentiments themselves were fading away. For
instance, she chose to condemn herself to voluntary exile and
seclusion after her bereavement, receiving only a very few friends,
of whom M. Jacques Termonde was one; but she very soon began to
adorn herself and everything around her, with the fine and subtle
tastefulness that was innate in her.
My mother was a very lovely woman; her beauty was of a refined and
pensive order, her figure was tall and slender, her dark hair was
very luxuriant and of remarkable length. No doubt it was to the
Greek blood in her veins that she owed the classical lines of her
profile, her full-lidded soft eyes, and the willowy grace of her
form. Her maternal grandfather was a Greek merchant, of the name
of Votronto, who had come from the Levant to Marcielles when the
Ionian Islands were annexed to France.
Many times in after years I have recalled the strange contrast
between her rare and refined beauty and my father's stolid sturdy
form, and my own, and wondered whether the origin of many
irreparable mistakes might not be traced to that contrast. But I
did not reason in those days; I was under the spell of the fair
being who called me, "My son." I used to look at her with a kind
of idolatry when she was seated at her piano in that elegant
sanctum of hers, which she had hung with draped foreign stuffs, and
decorated with tall green plants and various curious things, after
a fashion entirely her own. For her sake, and in spite of my
natural awkwardness and untidiness, I strove to keep myself very
clean and neat in the more and more elaborate costumes which she
made me wear, and also more and more did the terrible image of the
murdered man fade away from that home, which, nevertheless, was
provided and adorned by the fortune which he had earned for us and
bequeathed to us. All the ways of modern life are so opposed to
the tragic in events, so far removed from the savage realities of
passion and bloodshed, that when such things intrude upon the
decorous life of a family, they are put out of sight with all
speed, and soon come to be looked upon as a bad dream, impossible
to doubt, but difficult to realize.
Yes, our life had almost resumed its normal course when my mother's
second marriage was announced to me. This time I accurately
remember not only the period, but also the day and hour.
I was spending my holidays with my spinster aunt, my father's
sister, who lived at Compiegne, in a house situated at the far end
of the town. She had three servants, one of whom was my dear old
Julie, who had left us because my mother could not get on with her.
My aunt Louise was a little woman of fifty, with countrified looks
and manners; she had hardly ever consented to stay two whole days
in Paris during my father's lifetime. Her almost invariable attire
was a black silk gown made at home, with just a line of white at
the neck and wrists, and she always wore a very long gold chain of
ancient date, which was passed under the bodice of her gown and
came out at the belt. To this chain her watch and a bunch of seals
and charms were attached. Her cap, plainly trimmed with ribbon,
was black like her dress, and the smooth bands of her hair, which
was turning gray, framed a thoughtful brow and eyes so kind that
she was pleasant to behold, although her nose was large and her
mouth and chin were heavy. She had brought up my father in this
same little town of Compiegne, and had given him, out of her
fortune, all that she could spare from the simple needs of her
frugal life, when he wished to marry Mdlle. de Slane, in order to
induce my mother's family to listen to his suit.
The contrast between the portrait in my little album of my aunt and
her face as I saw it now, told plainly enough how much she had
suffered during the past two years. Her hair had become more
white, the lines which run from the nostrils to the corners of the
mouth were deepened, her eyelids had a withered look. And yet she
had never been demonstrative in her grief. I was an observant
little boy, and the difference between my mother's character and
that of my aunt was precisely indicated to my mind by the
difference in their respective sorrow. At that time it was hard
for me to understand my aunt's reserve, while I could not suspect
her of want of feeling. Now it is to the other sort of nature that
I am unjust. My mother also had a tender heart, so tender that she
did not feel able to reveal her purpose to me, and it was my Aunt
Louise who undertook to do so. She had not consented to be present
at the marriage, and M. Termonde, as I afterwards learned,
preferred that I should not attend on the occasion, in order, no
doubt, to spare the feelings of her who was to become his wife.
In spite of all her self-control, Aunt Louise had tears in her
brown eyes when she led me to the far end of the garden, where my
father had played when he was a child like myself. The golden
tints of September had begun to touch the foliage of the trees. A
vine spread its tendrils over the arbor in which we seated
ourselves, and wasps were busy among the ripening grapes. My aunt
took both my hands in hers, and began:
"Andre, I have to tell you a great piece of news."
I looked at her apprehensively. The shock of the dreadful event in
our lives had left its mark upon my nervous system, and at the
slightest surprise my heart would beat until I nearly fainted. She
saw my agitation and said simply:
"Your mother is about to marry."
It was strange this sentence did not immediately produce the
impression which my look at her had led my aunt to expect. I had
thought from the tone of her voice, that she was going to tell me
of my mother's illness or death. My sensitive imagination readily
conjured up such fears. I asked calmly:
"Whom?"
"You do not guess?"
"M. Termonde?" I cried.
Even now I cannot define the reasons which sent this name to my
lips so suddenly, without a moment's thought. No doubt M. Termonde
had been a good deal at our house since my father's death; but had
he not visited us as often, if not more frequently, before my
mother's widowhood? Had he not managed every detail of our affairs
for us with care and fidelity, which even then I could recognize as
very rare? Why should the news of his marriage with my mother seem
to me on the instant to be much worse news than if she had married
no matter whom? Exactly the opposite effect ought to have been
produced, surely? I had known this man for a long time; he had
been very kind to me formerly--they said he spoiled me--and he was
very kind to me still. My best toys were presents from him, and my
prettiest books; a wonderful wooden horse which moved by clockwork,
given to me when I was seven--how much my poor father was amused
when I told him this horse was "a double thoroughbred"--"Don
Quixote," with Dore's illustrations, this very year; in fact some
new gift constantly, and yet I was never easy and light-hearted in
his presence as I had formerly been. When had this restraint
begun? I could not have told that, but I thought he came too often
between my mother and me. I was jealous of him, I may as well
confess it, with that unconscious jealousy which children feel, and
which made me lavish kisses on my mother when he was by, in order
to show him that she was my mother, and nothing at all to him. Had
he discovered my feelings? Had they been his own also? However
that might be, I now never failed to discern antipathy similar to
my own in his looks, notwithstanding his flattering voice and his
over-polite ways. At my then age, instinct is never deceived about
such impressions.
Without any other cause than the weakness of nerves to which I had
been subject ever since my father's death, I burst into tears. The
same thing happened to me sometimes when I was shut up in my room
alone, with the door bolted, suffering from a dread which I could
not conquer, like that of a coming danger. I would forecast the
worst accidents that could happen; for example, that my mother
would be murdered, like my father, and then myself, and I peered
under all the articles of furniture in the room. It had occurred
to me, when out walking with a servant, to imagine that the
harmless man might be an accomplice of the mysterious criminal, and
have it in charge to take me to him, or at all events to have it in
charge to take place. My too highly-wrought imagination
overmastered me. I fancied myself, however, escaping from the
deadly device, and in order to hide myself more effectually, making
for Compiegne. Should I have enough money? Then I reflected that
it might be possible to sell my watch to an old watchmaker whom I
used to see, when on my way to the Lycee, at work behind the window
of his little shop, with a glass fixed in his right eye. That was
a sad faculty of foresight which poisoned so many of the harmless
hours of my childhood! It was the same faculty that now made me
break out into choking sobs when my aunt asked me what I had in my
mind against M. Termonde. I related the worst of my grievances to
her then, leaning my head on her shoulder, and in this one all the
others were summed up. It dated from two months before. I had
come back from school in a merry mood, contrary to my habit. My
teacher had dismissed me with praise of my compositions and
congratulations on my prizes. What good news this was to take home
and how tenderly my mother would kiss me when she heard it! I put
away my books, washed my hands carefully, and flew to the salon
where my mother was. I entered the room without knocking at the
door, and in such haste that as I sprang towards her to throw
myself into her arms, she gave a little cry. She was standing
beside the mantlepiece, her face was very pale, and near her stood
M. Termonde. He seized me by the arm and held me back from her.
"Oh, how you frightened me!" said my mother.
"Is that the way to come into a salon?" said M. Termonde.
His voice had turned rough like his gesture. He had grasped my arm
so tightly that where his fingers had fastened on it I found black
marks that night when I undressed myself. But it was neither his
insolent words nor the pain of his grasp which made me stand there
stupidly, with a swelling heart. No, it was hearing my mother say
to him:
"Don't scold Andre too much; he is so young. He will improve."
Then she drew me towards her, and rolled my curls round her
fingers; but in her words, in their tone, in her glance, in her
faint smile, I detected a singular timidity, almost a supplication,
directed to the man before her, who frowned as he pulled his
moustache with his restless fingers, as if in impatience of my
presence. By what right did he, stranger, speak in the tone of a
master in our house? Why had he laid his hand on me ever so
lightly? Yes, by what right? Was I his son or his ward? Why did
not my mother defend me against him? Even if I were in fault it
was towards her only. A fit of rage seized upon me; I burned with
longing to spring upon M. Termonde like a beast, to tear his face
and bite him. I darted a look of fury at him and at my mother, and
left the room without speaking. I was of a sullen temper, and I
think this defect was due to my excessive and almost morbid
sensitiveness. All my feelings were exaggerated, so that the least
thing angered me, and it was misery to me to recover myself. Even
my father had found it very difficult to get the better of those
fits of wounded feeling, during which I strove against my own
relentings with a cold and concentrated anger which both relieved
and tortured me. I was well aware of this moral infirmity, and as
I was not a bad child in reality, I was ashamed of it. Therefore,
my humiliation was complete when, as I went out of the room, M.
Termonde said:
"Now for a week's sulk! His temper is really insufferable."
His remark had one advantage, for I made it a point of honor to
give the lie to it, and did not sulk; but the scene had hurt me too
deeply for me to forget it, and now my resentment was fully
revived, and grew stronger and stronger while I was telling the
story to my aunt. Alas! my almost unconscious second-sight, that
of a too sensitive child, was not in error. That puerile but
painful scene symbolized the whole history of my youth, my
invincible antipathy to the man who was about to take my father's
place, and the blind partiality in his favor of her who ought to
have defended me from the first and always.
"He detests me!" I said through my tears; "what have I done to
him?"
"Calm yourself," said the kind woman. "You are just like your poor
father, making the worst of all your little troubles. And now you
must try to be nice to him on account of your mother, and not to
give way to this violent feeling, which frightens me. Do not make
an enemy of him," she added.
It was quite natural that she should speak to me in this way, and
yet her earnestness appeared strange to me from that moment out. I
do not know why she also seemed surprised at my answer to her
question, "What do you know?" She wanted to quiet me, and she
increased the apprehension with which I regarded the usurper--so I
called him ever afterwards--by the slight faltering of her voice
when she spoke to him.
"You will have to write to them this evening," said she at length.
Write to them! The words sickened me. They were united; never,
nevermore should I be able to think of the one without thinking of
the other.
"And you?"
"I have already written."
"When are they to be married?"
"They were married yesterday," she answered, in so low a tone that
I hardly heard the words.
"And where?" I asked, after a pause.
"In the country, at the house of some friends." Then she added
quickly: "They preferred that you should not be there on account of
the interruption of your holidays. They have gone away for three
weeks; then they will go to see you in Paris before they start for
Italy. You know I am not well enough to travel. I will keep you
here until then. Be a good boy, and go now and write."
I had many other questions to put to her, and many more tears to
weep, but I restrained myself, and a quarter of an hour later, I
was seated at my dear good aunt's writing-table in her salon.
How I loved that room on the ground floor, with its glass door
opening on the garden. It was filled with remembrance for me. On
the wall at the side of the old-fashioned "secretary" hung the
portraits, in frames of all shapes and sizes, of those whom the
good and pious soul had loved and lost. This funereal little
corner spoke strongly to my fancy. One of the portraits was a
colored miniature, representing my great-grandmother in the costume
of the Directory, with a short waist, and her hair dressed a la
Proudhon. There was also a miniature of my great-uncle, her son.
What an amiable, self-important visage was that of the staunch
admirer of Louis Philippe and M. Thiers! Then came my paternal
grandfather, with his strong parvenu physiognomy, and my father at
all ages. Underneath these works of art was a bookcase, in which I
found all my father's school prizes, piously preserved. What a
feeling of protection I derived from the portieres in green velvet,
with long bands of needlework, my aunt's masterpieces, which hung
in wide folds over the doors! With what admiration I regarded the
faded carpet, with its impossible flowers, which I had so often
tried to gather in my babyhood! This was one of the legends of my
earliest years, one of those anecdotes which are told of a beloved
son, and which make him feel that the smallest details of his
existence have been observed, understood, and loved. In later days
I have been frozen by the ice of indifference. And my aunt, she
whose life had been lived among these old-fashioned things, how I
loved her, with that face in which I read nothing but supreme
tenderness for me, those eyes whose gaze did me good in some
mysterious part of my soul! I felt her so near to me, only through
her likeness to my father, that I rose from my task four or five
times to kiss her, during the time it took me to write my letter of
congratulation to the worst enemy I had, to my knowledge, in the
world.
And this was the second indelible date in my life.