DISASTER
Vitalis had to be buried the next day, and M. Acquin promised to take me
to the funeral. But the next day I could not rise from my bed, for in
the night I was taken very ill. My chest seemed to burn like poor little
Pretty-Heart's after he had spent the night in the tree. The doctor was
called in. I had pneumonia. The doctor wanted me sent to the hospital,
but the family would not hear of it. It was during this illness that I
learned to appreciate Etiennette's goodness. She devoted herself to
nursing me. How good and kind she was during that terrible sickness.
When she was obliged to leave me to attend to her household duties, Lise
took her place, and many times in my delirium I saw little Lise sitting
at the foot of my bed with her big eyes fixed on me anxiously. In my
delirium I thought that she was my guardian angel, and I would speak to
her and tell her of all my hopes and desires. It was from this time that
I began to consider her as something ideal, as a different being from
the other people I met. It seemed surprising that she could live in our
life; in my boyish imagination I could picture her flying away with big
white wings to a more beautiful world.
I was ill for a very long time. At night, when I was almost
suffocating, I had to have some one to sit up with me; then Alexix and
Benny would take turns. At last I was convalescent, and then it was Lise
who replaced Etiennette and walked with me down by the river. Of course
during these walks she could not talk, but strange to say we had no need
of words. We seemed to understand each other so well without talking.
Then came the day when I was strong enough to work with the others in
the garden. I had been impatient to commence, for I wanted to do
something for my kind friends who had done so much for me.
As I was still weak, the task that was given to me was in proportion to
my strength. Every morning after the frost had passed, I had to lift the
glass frames and at night, before it got chilly, I had to close them
again. During the day I had to shade the wall flowers with straw
coverings to protect them from the sun. This was not difficult to do,
but it took all my time, for I had several hundred glasses to move twice
daily.
Days and months passed. I was very happy. Sometimes I thought that I was
too happy, it could not last. M. Acquin was considered one of the
cleverest florists round about Paris. After the wall flower season was
over other flowers replaced them.
For many weeks we had been working very hard, as the season promised to
be an especially good one. We had not even taken a rest on Sunday, but
as all the flowers were now perfect and ready for the approaching
season, it was decided that, for a reward, we were all to go and have
dinner on Sunday, August 5th, with one of M. Acquin's friends, who was
also a florist. Capi was to be one of the party. We were to work until
four o'clock, and when all was finished we were to lock the gates and go
to Arcueil. Supper was for six o'clock. After supper we were to come
home at once, so as not to be late in getting to bed, as Monday morning
we had to be up bright and early, ready for work. A few minutes before
four we were all ready.
"Come on, all of you," cried M. Acquin gayly. "I'm going to lock the
gates."
"Come, Capi."
Taking Lise by the hand, I began to run with her; Capi jumped around us,
barking. We were all dressed up in our best, and looking forward to a
good dinner. Some people turned round to watch us as we passed. I don't
know what I looked like, but Lise in her blue dress and white shoes was
the prettiest little girl that one could see. Time passed quickly.
We were having dinner out of doors when, just as we had finished, one of
us remarked how dark it was getting. Clouds were gathering quickly in
the sky.
"Children, we must go home," said M. Acquin, "there's going to be a
storm."
"Go, already!" came the chorus.
"If the wind rises, all the glasses will be upset."
We all knew the value of those glass frames and what they mean to a
florist. It would be terrible for us if the wind broke ours.
"I'll hurry ahead with Benny and Alexix," the father said. "Remi can
come on with Etiennette and Lise."
They rushed off. Etiennette and I followed more slowly with Lise. No one
laughed now. The sky grew darker. The storm was coming quickly. Clouds
of dust swirled around us; we had to turn our backs and cover our eyes
with our hands, for the dust blinded us. There was a streak of lightning
across the sky, then came a heavy clap of thunder.
Etiennette and I had taken Lise by the hands; we were trying to drag her
along faster, but she could scarcely keep up with us. Would the father,
Benny and Alexix get home before the storm broke? If they were only in
time to close the glass cases so that the wind could not get under them
and upset them! The thunder increased; the clouds were so heavy that it
seemed almost night. Then suddenly there was a downpour of hail, the
stones struck us in the face, and we had to race to take shelter under a
big gateway.
In a minute the road was covered with white, like in winter. The
hailstones were as large as pigeon eggs; as they fell they made a
deafening sound, and every now and again we could hear the crash of
broken glass. With the hailstones, as they slid from the roofs to the
street, fell all sorts of things, pieces of slate, chimney pots, tiles,
etc.
"Oh, the glass frames!" cried Etiennette.
I had the same thought.
"Even if they get there before the hail, they will never have time to
cover the glasses with straw. Everything will be ruined."
"They say that hail only falls in places," I said, trying to hope still.
"Oh, this is too near home for us to escape. If it falls on the garden
the same as here, poor father will be ruined. And he counted so much on
those flowers, he needs the money so badly."
I had heard that the glass frames cost as much as 1800 francs a hundred,
and I knew what a disaster it would be if the hail broke our five or six
hundred, without counting the plants and the conservatories. I would
liked to have questioned Etiennette, but we could scarcely hear each
other speak, and she did not seem disposed to talk. She looked at the
hail falling with a hopeless expression, like a person would look upon
his house burning.
The hurricane lasted but a short while; it stopped as suddenly as it had
commenced. It lasted perhaps six minutes. The clouds swept over Paris
and we were able to leave our shelter. The hailstones were thick on the
ground. Lise could not walk in them in her thin shoes, so I took her on
my back and carried her. Her pretty face, which was so bright when going
to the party, was now grief-stricken and the tears rolled down her
cheeks.
Before long we reached the house. The big gates were open and we went
quickly into the garden. What a sight met our eyes! All the glass frames
were smashed to atoms. Flowers, pieces of glass and hailstones were all
heaped together in our once beautiful garden. Everything was shattered!
Where was the father?
We searched for him. Last of all we found him in the big conservatory,
of which every pane of glass was broken. He was seated on a wheelbarrow
in the midst of the débris which covered the ground. Alexix and Benjamin
stood beside him silently.
"My children, my poor little ones!" he cried, when we all were there.
He took Lise in his arms and began to sob. He said nothing more. What
could he have said? It was a terrible catastrophe, but the consequences
were still more terrible. I soon learned this from Etiennette.
Ten years ago their father had bought the garden and had built the house
himself. The man who had sold him the ground had also lent him the money
to buy the necessary materials required by a florist. The amount was
payable in yearly payments for fifteen years. The man was only waiting
for an occasion when the florist would be late in payment to take back
the ground, house, material; keeping, of course, the ten-year payments
that he had already received.
This was a speculation on the man's part, for he had hoped that before
the fifteen years expired there would come a day when the florist would
be unable to meet his notes. This day had come at last! Now what was
going to happen?
We were not left long in doubt. The day after the notes fell due--this
sum which was to have been paid from the sale of his season's flowers--a
gentleman dressed all in black came to the house and handed us a stamped
paper. It was the process server. He came often; so many times that he
soon began to know us by name.
"How do you do, Mlle. Etiennette? Hello, Remi; hello, Alexix!"
And he handed us his stamped paper smilingly, as though we were friends.
The father did not stay in the house. He was always out. He never told
us where he went. Probably he went to call on business men, or he might
have been at court.
What would the result be? A part of the winter passed. As we were unable
to repair the conservatories and renew the glass frames, we cultivated
vegetables and hardier flowers that did not demand shelter. They were
not very productive, but at least it was something, and it was work for
us. One evening the father returned home more depressed than usual.
"Children," he said, "it is all over."
I was about to leave the room, for I felt that he had something serious
to say to his children. He signed to me to stop.
"You are one of the family, Remi," he said sadly, "and although you are
not very old, you know what trouble is. Children, I am going to leave
you."
There was a cry on all sides.
Lise flung her arms round her father's neck. He held her very tight.
"Ah, it's hard to leave you, dear children," he said, "but the courts
have ordered me to pay, and as I have no money, everything here has to
be sold, and as that is not enough, I have to go to prison for five
years. As I am not able to pay with my money, I have to pay with my
liberty."
We all began to cry.
"Yes, it's sad," he continued brokenly, "but a man can't do anything
against the law. My attorney says that it used to be worse than it is."
There was a tearful silence.
"This is what I have decided is the best thing to do," continued the
father. "Remi, who is the best scholar, will write to my sister
Catherine and explain the matter to her and ask her to come to us. Aunt
Catherine has plenty of common sense and she will be able to decide what
should be done for the best."
It was the first time that I had written a letter, and this was a very
painful one, but we still had a ray of hope. We were very ignorant
children and the fact that Aunt Catherine was coming, and that she was
practical, made us hope that everything could be made right. But she did
not come as soon as we had hoped. A few days later the father had just
left the house to call on one of his friends, when he met the police
face to face coming for him. He returned to the house with them; he was
very pale; he had come to say good-by to his children.
"Don't be so downcast, man," said one of them who had come to take him;
"to be in prison for debt is not so dreadful as you seem to think.
You'll find some very good fellows there."
I went to fetch the two boys, who were in the garden. Little Lise was
sobbing; one of the men stooped down and whispered something in her ear,
but I did not hear what he said.
The parting was over very quickly. M. Acquin caught Lise up in his arms
and kissed her again and again, then he put her down, but she clung to
his hand. Then he kissed Etiennette, Alexix and Benny and gave Lise into
her sister's care. I stood a little apart, but he came to me and kissed
me affectionately, just like the others, and then they took him away. We
all stood in the middle of the kitchen crying; not one of us had a word
to say.
Aunt Catherine arrived an hour later. We were still crying bitterly. For
a country woman who had no education or money, the responsibility that
had fallen upon her was heavy. A family of destitute children, the
eldest not yet sixteen, the youngest a dumb girl. Aunt Catherine had
been a nurse in a lawyer's family; she at once called upon this man to
ask his advice, and it was he who decided our fate. When she returned
from the lawyer's, she told us what had been arranged. Lise was to go
and live with her. Alexix was to go to an uncle at Varses, Benny to
another uncle, who was a florist at Saint-Quentin, and Etiennette to an
aunt who lived at the seashore.
I listened to these plans, waiting until they came to me. When Aunt
Catherine ceased speaking, and I had not been mentioned, I said, "And
me?..."
"Why, you don't belong to the family."
"I'll work for you."
"You're not one of the family."
"Ask Alexix and Benny if I can't work, and I like work."
"And soup, also, eh?"
"But he's one of the family; yes, aunt, he's one of the family," came
from all sides.
Lise came forwards and clasped her hands before her aunt with an
expression that said more than words.
"Poor mite," said Aunt Catherine, "I know you'd like him to come and
live with us, but we can't always get what we want. You're my niece, and
if my man makes a face when I take you home, all I've to tell him is
that you're a relation, and I'm going to have you with me. It will be
like that with your other uncles and aunts. They will take a relation,
but not strangers."
I felt there was nothing to say. What she said was only too true. I was
not one of the family. I could claim nothing, ask nothing; that would be
begging. And yet I loved them all and they all loved me. Aunt Catherine
sent us to bed, after telling us that we were to be parted the next day.
Scarcely had we got upstairs than they all crowded round me. Lise clung
to me, crying. Then I knew, that in spite of their grief at parting from
one another, it was of me that they thought; they pitied me because I
was alone. I felt, indeed, then that I was their brother. Suddenly an
idea came to me.
"Listen," I said; "even if your aunts and uncles don't want me, I can
see that you consider me one of the family."
"Yes, yes," they all cried.
Lise, who could not speak, just squeezed my hand and looked up at me
with her big, beautiful eyes.
"Well, I'm a brother, and I'll prove it," I said stoutly.
"There's a job with Pernuit; shall I go over and speak to him
to-morrow?" asked Etiennette.
"I don't want a job. If I take a job I shall have to stay in Paris, and
I shan't see you again. I'm going to put on my sheepskin and take my
harp, and go first to one place and then to another where you are all
going to live. I shall see you all one after the other, and I'll carry
the news from one to the other, so you'll all be in touch. I haven't
forgotten my songs nor my dance music, and I'll get enough money to
live."
Every face beamed. I was glad they were so pleased with my idea. For a
long time we talked, then Etiennette made each one go to bed, but no one
slept much that night, I least of all. The next day at daybreak Lise
took me into the garden.
"You want to speak to me?" I asked.
She nodded her head.
"You are unhappy because we are going to be parted? You need not tell
me; I can see it in your eyes, and I am unhappy, too."
She made a sign that it was something else she wanted to say.
"In fifteen days I shall be at Dreuzy, where you are going to live."
She shook her head.
"You don't want me to go to Dreuzy?"
In order for us to understand each other, I made more progress by
questioning. She replied either with a nod or a shake of the head. She
told me that she wanted to see me at Dreuzy, but pointing her finger in
three directions, she made me understand that I must first go and see
her brothers and sister.
"You want me first to go to Varses, then Esnandes and then
Saint-Quentin?"
She smiled and nodded, pleased that I understood.
"Why?"
Then with her lips and hands, and above all with her eyes, she explained
to me why she wished this. She wanted me to go and see her sister and
brothers first, so that when I reached Dreuzy I could tell her news of
them. They had to start at eight o'clock, and Aunt Catherine had ordered
a cab to take them, first of all to the prison to say good-by to their
father, and then each, with their baggage, to the different depots where
they had to take their trains. At seven o'clock Etiennette, in her turn,
took me in the garden.
"I want to give you a little keepsake, Remi," she said. "Take this
little case; my godfather gave it to me. You'll find thread, needles and
scissors in it; when you are tramping along the roads you'll need them,
for I shan't be there to put a patch on your clothes, nor sew a button
on. When you use my scissors, think of us all."
While Etiennette was speaking to me, Alexix loitered near; when she left
me to return to the house, he came up.
"Say, Remi," he began, "I've got two five franc pieces. Take one; I'll
be so pleased if you will."
Of the five of us, Alexix was the only one who cared very much for
money. We always made fun of his greed; he saved up sou by sou, counting
his hoard continually, he was always very proud when he had a brand new
piece. His offer touched me to the heart; I wanted to refuse, but he
insisted, and slipped a shiny silver piece into my hand. I knew that his
friendship for me must be very strong if he were willing to share his
treasure with me.
Benjamin, neither, had forgotten me; he also wanted to give me a
present. He gave me his knife, and in exchange he exacted a sou, because
he said "a knife cuts friendship."
The time passed quickly. The moment had come for us to part. As the cab
was drawing up at the house, Lise again made a sign for me to follow her
into the garden.
"Lise!" called her aunt.
She made no reply, but ran quickly down the path. She stopped at a big
Bengal rose tree and cut off a branch, then, turning to me, she divided
the stalk in two; there was a rose on either side. The language of the
lips is a small thing compared with the language of the eyes; how cold
and empty are words compared with looks!
"Lise! Lise!" cried her aunt.
The baggage was already in the cab. I took down my harp and called to
Capi. At the sight of my old suit, he jumped and barked with joy. He
loved his liberty on the high roads more than being closed up in the
garden. They all got into the cab. I lifted Lise onto her aunt's lap. I
stood there half dazed, then the aunt gently pushed me away and closed
the door. They were off.
Through a mist I watched Lise as she leaned out of the window waving
her hand to me, then the cab sharply turned the corner of the street and
all I could see was a cloud of dust.
Leaning on my harp, with Capi sprawling at my feet, I stayed there
looking absently down the street. A neighbor, who had been asked to lock
up the house and keep the key, called to me:
"Are you going to stay there all day?"
"No, I'm off now."
"Where are you going?"
"Straight ahead."
"If you'd like to stay," he said, perhaps out of pity, "I'll keep you,
but I can't pay you, because you're not very strong. Later I might give
you something."
I thanked him, but said no.
"Well, as you like; I was only thinking for your own good. Good-by and
good luck!"
He went away. The cab had gone, the house was locked up.
I turned away from the home where I had lived for two years, and where I
had hoped always to live. The sky was clear, the weather warm, very
different from the icy night when poor Vitalis and I had fallen
exhausted by the wall.
So these two years had only been a halt. I must go on my way again. But
the stay had done me good. It had given me strength and I had made dear
friends. I was not now alone in the world, and I had an object in life,
to be useful and give pleasure to those I loved.