That hard winter passed under the ferule of the “Bull of Apis” and the
“Great Ape,” finally came to an end and spring returned; it was always
a troublous time for us, the scholars, for the first mild days gave us
a great longing to be out, and we could scarcely hide our restlessness.
The roses budded everywhere upon our old walls; my beloved little
garden, bright and warm under the March sunshine, tempted me, and I
would tarry there a long time to watch the insects wake up, and to see
the early butterflies and bees fly away. Even the revised “Donkey's
Skin” was neglected.
I was no longer escorted to and from school, for I had persuaded my
family to discontinue a custom that made me ridiculous in the eyes of
my companions. Often, before returning home, I would take a long and
roundabout way and pass by the peaceful ramparts from where I had
glimpses of other provinces, and a sight of the distant country.
I worked with even less zeal than usual that spring, for the beautiful
weather that tempted me out of doors turned my head and made study
almost impossible.
Assuredly one of the things for which I had the least aptitude was
French composition; I generally composed a mere rough draught without a
particle of embellishment to redeem it. In the class there was a boy who
was a very eagle, and he always read his lucubrations aloud. Oh! with
what unction he read out his pretty creations! (He is now settled in a
manufacturing town, and has become the most prosaic of petty bailiffs.)
One day the subject given out was: “A Shipwreck.” To me the words had
a lyrical sound! But, nevertheless, I handed in my paper with only the
title and my name inscribed upon it. No, I could not make up my mind
to elaborate the subjects given to us by the “Great Ape”; a sort of
instinctive good taste kept me from writing trite commonplaces, and as
for putting down things of my own imagining, the knowledge that they
would be read and picked to pieces by the old bogey made it impossible
for me to compose anything.
I loved, however, even at this time, to write for myself, but I did it
with the greatest secrecy. Not in the desk in my room that was profaned
by lessons and copy-books, but in the little old-fashioned one that was
part of the furniture of my museum, there was hidden away a unique thing
that represented my first attempt at a journal. It looked like a sibyl's
conjuring book, or an Assyrian manuscript; a seeming endless strip
of paper was rolled upon a reed; at the head of this there were two
varieties of the Egyptian sphinx and a cabalistic star drawn in red
ink,--and under these mysterious signs I wrote down, upon the full
length of the paper and in a cipher of my own invention, daily events
and reflections. A year later, however, because of the labor involved in
transcribing the cryptographic characters I had chosen I discarded them
and used the ordinary letters; but I continued my work with the greatest
secrecy, and I kept my manuscript under lock and key as if it were an
interdicted book. I inscribed there, not so much the events of my almost
colorless existence, as my incoherent impressions, the melancholy that
I felt at twilight, my regret for past summers, and my dreams of distant
countries. . . . I already had a longing to give my fugitive emotions a
determinative quality, I needed to wrestle against my own weaknesses
and frailties and to banish, if possible, the dream-like element that
I seemed to discover in all the things about me, and for that reason I
continued my journal until a few years ago. . . . But at that time the
mere idea that a day might come when someone would have a peep at it was
insupportable to me; so much so indeed that if I left home and went to
the Island or elsewhere for a few days, I always took care to seal up my
journal, and with the greatest solemnity I wrote upon the packet: “It is
my last wish that this book be burned without being read.”
God knows, I have changed since then. But it would be going too far
beyond the limits of this story of my childhood to recount here through
what changes in my life's view-point it chances that I now sing aloud
of my woes, and cry out to the passers-by, for the purpose of drawing
to myself the sympathy of distant unknown ones; and I call out with the
greater anguish in proportion as I feel myself approaching nearer and
nearer to the final dust. . . . And who knows? perhaps as I grow older
I may write of those still more sacred things which at present cannot be
forced from me,--and by that means try to prolong beyond the bounds of
my individual life, memory of my being, of my sorrows, and joys, and
love.