afterward. A dark suspicion, though a wholly groundless one, rested on
the husband’s heart, and this, with the gossip of the people, made the
poor, beautiful wife utterly wretched. When, after a few years, she
became a widow—I came here just at that time—I often saw her, when the
church was empty, kneel before the picture for hours, shedding burning
tears. She did not remain here long, but withdrew to her lonely estate,
whence she often comes to the village, and never neglects to visit the
church.
“Nothing more was heard from the artist himself, who disappeared
without leaving a trace, only some of the owners of the neighboring
estates, who knew him, said that he had gone to Africa as a missionary
and vanished there.”
We thanked the pastor for his story and set out on our way home.
END.
A CHRISTMAS EVE IN PARIS.
It was Christmas Eve of the year 1874. We were slowly pressed forward
by the human tide constantly surging to and fro upon the broad pavement
of the Boulevard des Italiens. Often it was scarcely possible to pause
a moment in front of the brilliantly-lighted show windows of a shop, to
admire, here the diamonds, yonder the bronzes and ivory carvings
displayed within. But one exhibit attracted us too strongly to pass it
with a hasty glance. We checked our steps, which produced the same
effect as when a drifting log suddenly grounds across a stream. First
there was a violent shock, then an angry murmur, an excited chattering,
and the stream gradually turns aside and flows in a slight bend around
the obstacle which cannot be swept away.
The articles in this show window, which belonged to a fashionable
confectioner, were far too tempting. A Christmas Fair, a veritable
paradise for children: miniature Hussar boots, cradles, tiny champagne
bottles, bomb-shells, burning logs, a poodle dressed as a waiter, with
a napkin at his neck, all made of sugar and executed with Parisian
daintiness, and in the midst of this French fiddle-faddle stood the
sturdy, simple German pine tree.
“Is the Christmas tree much used in French families?” I asked my
companion, Monsieur G., a Paris architect, who has recently won much
renown.
“I think not,” he replied, “but I have always had my arbre de noël in
my own house, and it is the central point of one of my most sorrowful
memories.”
A mournful expression shadowed his mobile features as he spoke, and a
heavy sigh escaped his lips. We went on and, a few steps beyond, turned
into the “Rue du 4 Septembre.” I did not wish to interrupt my friend’s
deep reverie by obtrusive, curious questions, so for a short time we
walked silently side by side. It was he who interrupted this pause by
voluntarily telling his sad story.
“Four years,” he began, “have passed since that terrible winter, but
everything is still as vividly impressed upon my mind as though it had
happened only yesterday. The Prussians had forged their iron ring
around the city, and we breathed more and more heavily. The whole world
knows the epic of that siege, from its commencement to its close. In
the beginning ‘useless mouths’ were banished, and the assurance was
given that those who remained need have no anxiety about suffering
want; first we ate pork, then horse-flesh, and at the end of six weeks
the most incredible things supplied us with food. In addition, the
winter was one of those severe seasons which we do not have once in a
decade. The Seine froze, and loaded carts could cross the lake in the
Bois de Boulogne. Our foes were warmly ensconced in our country-houses,
they cut down our groves and the trees in our parks to keep the flames
on the hearths burning, and fed their camp-fires with our grand pianos
and carved furniture. We had no woods to fell, and naturally were less
ready to use our pianos for fire-wood than our enemies. The lack of
fuel was really less keenly felt than the lack of food. All the wood
and coal remaining in Paris was purchased by the rich at fabulous
prices, and the poor, nay, even the well-to-do classes had to shift for
themselves. The proletarians succeeded in doing so without much
difficulty. Our stock of absinthe was inexhaustible, unfortunately it
was the only thing with which we were supplied for months or years;
‘Une goutte’ will fully compensate the Paris workman for the fire on
the hearth or the warmth of the stove—but what was to become of our
women, our children, who do not drink absinthe?
“It was comparatively easy for us men. We were all soldiers, we were
daily occupied either in drilling within the city or in digging and
building at the out-works; and that keeps one tolerably warm, I can
assure you. But when we came home in the evening, we found a room cold
and dismal as a vault, a black, fireless hearth, the children huddled
under the bed-clothes, the wife muffled in cloak and shawls. We clasped
cold hands and kissed cold lips, which had forgotten how to smile.
“So the Christmas festival approached. Did I say festival? Suffering
and want had reached their height, and our eyes constantly saw too much
blood flow to have the red hue in the calendar attract our attention.
The poor children! The siege cut off even their pure, innocent
pleasures; there was no Christmas for them that year. The first week in
December my little Louise asked me if the naughty Prussians would let
St. Nicholas into the city, and a few days before Christmas she
anxiously asked the same question about the Christ child. Both times I
answered that I was afraid this year neither St. Nicholas nor the
little Christ-child could get through to the children who expected
them, but next year they would doubtless make ample amends for it.
Louise looked very sorrowful and was not easily comforted; it was so
long since the last Christmas festival, and the next one would probably
come no earlier than usual! But I could not help her; neither I nor my
wife were in the mood to prepare Christmas pleasures for the poor
child.
“Nor was Louise in a condition to enjoy such pleasures. She had been
ailing all the Winter and on Christmas Eve the illness broke out with
alarming violence. She was tortured by attacks of convulsive coughing
and in a high fever. We put the child to bed and sent at once for our
physician. My wife was greatly alarmed, and I, too, awaited the
doctor’s verdict with much anxiety. He came; we silently exchanged
greetings, and he approached the little one’s sick bed. My wife and I
in trembling suspense watched every line of his face, every expression
of his eyes; we scarcely dared to breathe. The doctor was an old and
dear friend, and Louise was very fond of playing with him; this time,
however, she did not recognize him, and thrust him back with her little
hand as he stroked the hair away from her flushed face and felt her
throbbing pulse.
“‘It is a long time since I have been here but, as you know, the
numerous wounded men, the crowded hospitals,’ he said apologetically,
as he watched the little sufferer.
“‘Of course, of course, but what do you think of our Louise?’
“The doctor forced a smile.
“‘It would not be difficult to give good advice,’ he said in a tone
whose lightness was evidently assumed. ‘Louise has grown excessively
thin since I last saw her; she must be better nourished. Under
different circumstances I should say: give her chicken broth, eggs, do
not let her go out of a moderately warm room, but now’—his eyes rested
on a piece of bread which lay on the table, the bread furnished by the
government, of which a clumsy wit said that it contained every possible
ingredient, among others even grain. ‘However,’ he added after a
painful pause, ‘there will be time enough to nourish her better after
the siege, which cannot last forever. What is immediately necessary is
a cup of hot tea, which must be repeated in two hours.’
“My wife cast a despairing glance at me, whispering with quivering
lips, ‘I have neither wood nor coal in the house.’ A deathlike
stillness pervaded the room, interrupted only by the gasping breath and
an attack of coughing from the child. I cannot describe now what I felt
at that moment, I only know that I would infinitely rather have been
dead than alive. The doctor was the first to break the silence. He
looked very grave as he said: ‘The hot tea is indispensable; if you
have no wood, no coal—not even any alcohol?’ My wife shook her head
mournfully. ‘Has not some neighbor—?’ (The same answer.) ‘Well, then
you must sacrifice some piece of furniture at once, for much depends
upon this tea.’
“I instantly rushed into the kitchen, which no longer contained
anything combustible, seized the ax, and was on the point of dealing a
blow on the piano, my wife’s favorite instrument, but the only large
article in the room, except an armoire, which contained little wood.
During the last fortnight we had been obliged to use our furniture to
supply the fuel for cooking, there was no attempt at heating! I was
already lifting the ax, when my wife suddenly uttered a faint cry,
seized my arm, and directly after rushed out of the room, exclaiming:
‘I have something!’
“Was any neighbor fortunate enough to have some wood? Did she expect to
find a coal dealer’s shop open at this hour and procure fuel there? I
was not to remain in uncertainty long. Five minutes after, the door
opened and my wife, her face radiant with joy, while tears of gratitude
sparkled in her eyes, entered, carrying with both hands—last year’s
huge Christmas tree which, since the festival, had remained unnoticed
in a corner of the attic.
“The whole terrible contrast between the present and the past suddenly
rose before me as if sharply illumined by a flash of lightning. There
was the slender, beautiful pine, which twelve short months ago, so
brief a span of time, a mere moment, looking back upon it, had formed
the center of a lovely picture of family happiness! It was in that very
room, a bright fire was blazing on the hearth, merry children were
dancing and bounding around the table, a happy father and mother were
smiling at the delight of the little ones; there was Louise, looking
like an angel in her white dress, with a blue ribbon in her fair curls,
her arms round, her cheeks plump, her dark eyes sparkling with joy,
and, with her, two little playmates whom she had invited to the
festival. They laughed and shouted as if fifty invisible angels were
laughing and clapping their hands with the children to fill the room to
the utmost with mirth and childish glee. On the table had stood the
magnificent Christmas tree, with tiny candles, gilded fruits, and tin
soldiers glittering among its green boughs, soldiers in French,
English, and Prussian uniforms. We jested and played and made merry
until after midnight, till the children fell asleep from sheer
happiness with dolls and soldiers from the Christmas tree clasped in
both hands.
“Now, here was the same Christmas tree, withered, dry and dusty, its
needles yellow, many of its boughs broken and drooping, others, instead
of golden apples and bonbons, bearing long trailing cobwebs, the room
was cold, the fire dead, and Louise lay on her bed, her little arms
emaciated, her little face thin and flushed by fever, racked by that
torturing cough.
“Her mother’s entrance had attracted her attention, and she partially
recovered her consciousness. Noticing the Christmas tree, she clapped
her little hands joyfully. ‘Oh, the Christmas tree, the pretty
Christmas tree!’ she exclaimed in a faint voice. Then, in touching
words, she begged her mamma to light the pretty candles and hang the
gold apples and the soldiers, only no Prussian ones, and to send for
Mimi and Lolotte, they had been good, and she, too, would be good in
future, very good.
“I was on the point of doing a cowardly act; I longed to go out into
the darkness, into the streets, the outposts, in order not to be
obliged to witness this sorrowful scene; I wished that a shell might
enter the house and put an end to everything. But, no, shells were not
fired on the night when the foe was also celebrating the Christmas
festival. I regained my composure with difficulty, and while my wife
sat on the edge of the bed, with one arm round the child, softly
singing songs, stroking and soothing her, I chopped the Christmas tree
with trembling hands and lighted a fire.
“The dry needles crackled and snapped, blazing high aloft, a sweet,
heavy aroma of resin pervaded the room, and the water in the pot began
to sing and boil. The doctor had gone out, my wife was still whispering
loving words and promises to the sick child, and while watching the
flames, and preparing the tea, I thought: ‘I thank thee, I thank thee,
thou blessed tree, which once made my child happy, and will now make
her well!’
“The Christmas tree did not make Louise well. And since that time I
have not needed one—she was my only child.”
THE STEPMOTHER.
AN OPEN LETTER TO FRAU I. H.
There are ideas which affect the mind, as the touch of a spider feels
on the finger. They awaken horror, loathing, lasting discomfort. I fear
that the conception “stepmother” is one of them. The word is uttered in
our presence, and awakes in our souls a series of images, some painful,
some repulsive; on the one hand is the poor motherless child in the
care of strangers, meanly clad, ill-fed, scolded, beaten, burdened with
impossible tasks, who secretly steals out on Winter nights to its
mother’s grave, and there, with heart-rending sobs, calls to the
snow-clad mound the reproachful question why she did not take her child
with her, why she had left it alone in the world; on the other hand is
the wicked woman, toothless, blear-eyed, with hooked chin and nose,
which almost meet, fingers as bony as a skeleton’s, who is happy only
when she has devised some new torture, some new humiliation for her
foster-child. How have these images entered our sphere of thought?
Perhaps from fairy tales, perhaps from poems and stories, I don’t know
myself. Not from experience, that is certain. Most of us have probably
no knowledge of stepmothers, and those with whom we are acquainted do
not bear the remotest resemblance to the idea which dwells in our
minds. Yet the contradiction between preconceived opinions and the
reality does not impress us, and we do not think of correcting the
former by the latter.
The letter which you, madame, addressed to me a few days ago, for a
definite purpose and in which, with noble excitement, you demanded
justice for the stepmother, first led me to reflect, and I have now
become aware of my prejudices, my cruel injustice toward one of the
most meritorious classes of the human race. You are right, the
stepmother is a martyr. She is a sufferer, but no one pities her, a
martyr who never receives the reward of canonization, a tragic heroine
who never finds her poet. She has married a widower and enters her new
home, where she meets a beautiful, sorrowful orphaned child. Her heart
is overflowing with the noblest feelings. She will be a loving mother
to the poor orphan, will kiss away the shadow of premature grief from
the young brow! Fate was less kind to her than to her companions, who,
during the first months after marriage, saw only the bright side of
wedded life; pleasant wedding journeys, inexhaustible proofs of
tenderness, endless love tokens. She is obliged to learn, with the
pleasant side of married life, its hardest duties, for which nature has
given to others of her sex long months of preparation; she has become
at the same time wife and mother. But what of that? With the enthusiasm
of a young soul, in whom love for the child and the pleasure of acting
a mother’s part are a heritage of the female sex, she assumes her
sublime task; she surrounds the child with solicitude and tenderness;
she kisses it awake in the morning and sings it to sleep at night; she
talks to it, plays with it, never loses sight of it. Under this warmth
of affection the child instantly begins to flourish, as the earth
responds to the heat of the sun. It has the coquettish beauty of a
wax-doll, its cheeks grow rosy, its eyes bright, its little arms round
and plump, but no love beams in the eyes, the arms do not learn to
clasp the neck of the stepmother, and the little mouth does not smile.
The stepmother is puzzled, and begins to reflect. Before her mind rises
the scene when her husband first brought her to their future home and
introduced her to the child with the words: “Baby, here is your new
mamma; be good and obedient, and she will love you very, very dearly.
There, now, give mamma a pretty kiss!” She had bent over the child, and
while pressing it warmly to her heart a tear fell on its little fair
head. The child had stood motionless, with its eyes fixed on its toes;
it had submitted to everything, but without a word of affection or even
a kiss in response. This had chilled the young mother like an icy
breath; the husband noticed or felt it, and said: “You know how
children are; the poor thing is shy, she is so unaccustomed to see
strange faces. But she will soon love you as you deserve.” This had
satisfied her, and she believed it. But now a year, two years had
passed; the child must have become accustomed to the “strange face,” it
must have felt long ago that the “new mamma” loved it very, very
dearly! Yet it is as cold, as distant, as reserved, as on the first
day. The stepmother looks tenderly at it, it lowers its eyes; she
kisses it, it obediently offers its lips, but they are motionless; she
speaks pleasantly to it, it maintains a sullen silence. The stepmother
goes out with the child, everybody turns, admires its beauty, envies
the woman who has such a treasure. Alas, this angel has a joyous glance
for all except the stepmother, a gay, childlike laugh for every one
save her. The beautiful child is only lively in the street, out of the
house; at home it is sulky. Every act of kindness from a stranger is
eagerly and enthusiastically acknowledged, but the loving words of the
foster-mother find no echo; they die away with no more effect than if
they had been flung into the sea.
The stepmother, with deep sorrow, asks herself the cause of all this,
and can find no answer. Poor woman! Busily, untiringly you weave your
web of love around the heart of the child confided to you, and do not
know that behind your back an evil Penelope sits, raveling at night
what you have done during the day! First, there are the first wife’s
relatives; from devotion to the dead they are wicked to the living;
whenever the child visits them it hears itself pitied; it is told of
its mamma, not the new one, for she is not its mother, but the old one,
how differently she would have loved it, how differently she would have
treated it; it is questioned about the stranger’s acts, and whether she
treats it kindly. Then there are servants, governesses, foolish
strangers, who, partly to win the child’s affection, partly from
wretched sentimentality, which considers it noble and kindhearted to
roll up the eyes and express pity where there is no cause for
compassion—sing the same song to the little one from morning till
night. It never hears itself called anything but “poor child! poor
orphan!” It learns that it tells an untruth whenever it calls its
stepmother “mamma”; it is taught to play the spy, to suspect, to
dissimulate; it is robbed of the frankness and guilelessness of
childhood and accustomed to seek beneath its stepmother’s words
different thoughts, beneath her acts hostile motives. Poor child, in
whose mind distrust is roused ere the judgment is formed! The mother
denies it an apple because it has already eaten too many, and it feels
sure that it is her malice which prompts her to refuse it the most
innocent pleasure; the mother will not permit it to visit a friend
because it has taken cold, and the weather is stormy, and it no longer
doubts the enmity of this woman, of whom everybody tells it so much
evil. And now come Christmas gifts of fairy tales, which describe the
wicked stepmother who thrice poisoned Snow-White, and the other one who
killed her stepson and served him to the father on the dinner table,
and if the child has previously doubted, it is now confident, for the
book, printed, bound, and filled with pictures, cannot deceive! So it
learns to hate at an age when it is our fairest privilege to love, and
to doubt at a time whose happiness is implicit faith.
Can this criminal poisoning of the child’s soul remain without
influence upon the stepmother? I deny it. What can you expect? Even the
noblest woman is mortal, and she has a still keener sensitiveness to
the return, or the failure to return her feelings than the rest of us.
Categorical necessity was not created for women, it is hard enough for
men. To fill a bottomless cask was rightfully considered by the subtle
Greek the most terrible punishment which could be devised for women. In
the bitter conflict with constant ingratitude, even the strongest sense
of duty, the most self-sacrificing nobility, must finally succumb. We
can give love only when, in some degree, we receive love in return.
One-sidedness here leads finally to impoverishment, and at last the
stepmother really feels for the child indifference, possibly aversion,
or even hate.
When we have once reached this point what a tragic picture unrolls
before our eyes! When the stepmother married she made herself the
priestess, who was to erect a new statue in a deserted temple, kindle a
fresh flame amid the dead embers of a cold altar; she set herself the
noble task of becoming a mother to the orphan, creating a pleasant home
for a lonely man, bringing happiness and joy into a sorrowful family
circle. And now, after years of humble, but heroic labor and exertion,
amid which the bloom of her life has withered, here is the result; a
cold-hearted child, whose soul is filled with hate and who is
unspeakably poor and pitiable because she lacks the treasure of sunny
memories of childhood, on which we happier mortals can draw during a
long life; a husband, whose home is distasteful because he cannot
endure the silent reproach in the sad eyes of his child, and she
herself, the wife, tortured by the most painful sting, bitter grief for
a marred life, an object of aversion to her husband, her foster-child,
the whole careless world! Who is to blame for such mournful results?
The mother? The child? The father? Neither of the three. It is the
fault of the senselessness and malice of prejudiced people.
This is the way in which the stepmother’s life presented itself to me,
and I wish that the whole world could see it with my eyes. Only how is
the evil, when recognized, to be remedied? You, madame, would fain see
the books of fairy tales, with their Snow-Whites and wicked stepmothers
abolished, or rather you would like to have these stories omitted from
the volume. That would be desirable and useful, but I fear it is
impracticable. Man is weak and irrational, and I confess that,
notwithstanding its baneful tendencies, which I admit, I would not for
the world see Snow-White torn from my own childish memories. I am
afraid that it will not do to throw away, for the sake of stepchildren,
some of the most precious pearls in the treasury of fairy tales. The
wisdom and tact of the father, and the absolute sincerity of the
stepmother can do more for the child.