His public life checked, father was evidently transferring his ambition

to our future: he was fulfilling himself in us. I alone withdrew

myself from his solicitude, my suspicions having been aroused by

Martinod’s insinuations. It was not difficult for me to accumulate

causes of vexation. Thus I refused to consider my departure--that

departure which was my own doing--as any less important than that of

Bernard for the colonies, Stephen for the Seminary, or Mélanie for

the convent in the rue du Bac where the Sisters of Charity pass the

time of their novitiate. Mélanie’s going away especially wronged me,

because it coincided with my own. The people who came to visit my

mother on account of my sister’s “holocaust” as Mlle Tapinois called

it, exasperated me; they never alluded to me, no one condoled with my

parents for losing me, no one noticed me, and yet I was going away,

too. Even grandfather made not the slightest effort to keep me at

home--nor so much as expressed any regret.

The day of separation came, a grey, rainy day, in harmony with the

sadness that hung over the house. The laughing Louise followed,

weeping, every step of Mélanie, who clung closely to mother. Every one

said insignificant nothings--no one had any appropriate words, and the

time was slipping away. We must start for the station. We had begun

to think of it long before the time, and mother added to her other

anxieties her fear that we should be too late.

Neither grandfather nor Aunt Deen was to be of the escorting party. The

former dreaded emotional exhibitions, and Aunt Deen excused herself

to Mélanie; she simply could not weep silently, and she preferred to

remain in solitude where she could give way to her grief without making

a disturbance; having said which she began loudly to bewail herself.

I went up to the tower chamber with my sister.

“Till we meet again, grandfather,” murmured Mélanie.

“Adieu, rather, little girl.”

“No, grandfather; till we meet again in heaven, where we are all going.”

He made a vague gesture which said only too plainly, “I won’t spoil

your illusions,” adding,

“You are carrying out your own idea. You are right. Till we meet again,

then, in the valley of Jehoshaphat.”

He showed himself no more moved over me.

“Well, well, my boy; may Paris be good to you!”

We went out together, last of all. Mélanie kissed old Mariette, who

murmured, “Can it be possible!” and stepped across the threshold. Twice

she turned again toward the house, and the second time she made the

sign of the cross. We could hear Aunt Deen’s cries from her closed room.

We were too early at the station, and had to drag out the time in

the waiting-room and on the platform. Father busied himself with the

tickets and the baggage. A few family friends who had come to bid us

good-bye joined us with doleful faces and words of sympathy. Thus we

had to endure Mlle Tapinois,--whom I could never think of except in

her night dress with a candle in her hand, since I had recognised her

in the aged dove in “Scenes of Animal Life”--and Abbé Heurtevant,

who since the death of his monarch had grown bent, and could predict

nothing but misfortune. Nothing could take place in our town without

the whole population mixing in. Marriage, departure or death, the

public claimed its share. Mother was politely thanking all these people

whose presence so distressed her--she would fain have been alone with

her daughter, and I could see that she was enduring martyrdom. The last

moments of our being together were flying. Louise, Nicola and James

clung to Mélanie--Bernard was trying to brighten the conversation, but

his pleasantries fell wide of the mark. As for Stephen, absorbed, he

was doubtless thinking that it would soon be his turn, or perhaps he

was praying.

When the moment came, mother wanted to be the last to say good-bye; she

clasped her daughter to her breast without a word, then, relinquishing

her hold she whispered low,

“My child, I bless thee.”

I was beside her, waiting for my turn to say good-bye. I used to

imagine to myself a parent’s blessing as a solemn act, such as I had

seen it in pictures; but here it was given in the twinkling of an eye,

and without so much as the lifting of a hand.

But for the demonstrations of Mlle Tapinois, the abbé and several other

persons who made a point of uttering memorable words, one might have

thought that ours was just any ordinary going away. The train started.

Having got in last, I was nearest the door. My father invited me to

give that place to my sister. The invitation wounded me, for it sounded

too much like an order. Of course I ought to have thought first of

getting out of the way.

Mélanie extended her head from the window with no heed to the falling

rain. She waved her arm--then as the train rounded a curve she turned

back to the compartment with red eyes, but only to hasten to the other

window. I knew that she was looking for the house, which was visible

from that side. After that she sat down covering her face with her

hands. As she remained thus, without moving, father gently took her in

his arms.

“You know, my child, if it makes you too unhappy, I shall take you home

again.”

She raised her head, tears raining down her cheeks, and with a

heart-broken smile replied,

“Oh, father, it is truly my vacation. Only I have been so happy at

home,--and never again to see our mother, nor the house--it is hard?”

“And for us?” said my father.

He turned away his head. Perhaps if I had better appreciated his

grief, I should have suffered less, in my corner, from thinking myself

forgotten. But as he controlled himself, I was free to torment myself

to my heart’s content. My sister was going away to carry out her own

idea, as grandfather had said, whereas I was being sent to prison. I

quite forgot that I had myself asked to be sent. But had I not been a

prisoner already, at our house? And in my rebellion, working myself up

with the thought of Nazzarena on the high road, the sun shining through

her hair and her teeth parted in her smile, I repeated to myself the

phrase which chimed with the movement of the train,

“I want to be free! I want to be free!”

BOOK IV

I

THE EPIDEMIC

I WAS being prepared for liberty by years of seclusion, the history

of which, after so many petty rebellions, I shall not set down here.

I never became wonted to that boarding school to which I had demanded

to be sent in a moment of pride which for nothing in the world would I

have disavowed. Yet I passed for a good scholar, whose only fault was a

little reserve or dissimulation.

I suffered frightfully during the first absence from home. I used to

cry in the dormitory, my head smothered in the covers, until I fell

asleep, enwrapped in my sorrow. But I never uttered a word of complaint.

My parents no doubt thought that I had accepted my new life without

difficulty. My father wrote to me regularly and at length: no doubt

this correspondence made an addition to his burdens for which I was

not in the least obliged to him. Self love urged me to repel all his

advances. Knowing nothing of Martinod’s insinuations, how should he

have guessed that I saw on every side injustice to myself, marks

of preference for my brothers? I systematically distorted phrases,

sentiments, thoughts. If, in his virile love, he avoided expressions

of affection, for fear of softening me, I accused him of harshness. If

on the other hand he gave way to his fondness for me, it was simply

to deceive me, and impose all the more upon me an authority which I

exaggerated to the point of imagining that it was everywhere about me,

an imagined persecution which became unsupportable. I usually wrote

to my mother, and he never remarked upon the fact. Yet he noticed

it, and several of his letters showed that he did. “I know,” he once

wrote, “that you do not care to confide in your father.” And mother,

who had also noticed it, missed no opportunity of writing about him,

emphasising his kindness of heart above all his other merits, reminding

me of instances of it, which exasperated me. If he had become aware of

my purposed and tenacious hostility, he had no suspicion of its cause;

and so the chasm which in the beginning a single step might easily have

crossed, grew ever wider between us.

This tension of my mind inspired in me a great ardour for work. I

achieved brilliant successes with perfect indifference, successes which

contributed to deceive my family, who found in them a proof that I had

accepted my new discipline. A good pupil, as my bulletins had it, could

not but be a fine child and the joy of his family. Aunt Deen sent me

extravagant compliments in bad handwriting, setting all down to the

account of my filial affection. From grandfather I never heard.

But what were these positive results in comparison with the inward

experiences that were going on in me? Little by little I relinquished

all religious practices, building up for myself a sort of mysticism

in which I formed a habit of taking refuge. Imagination substituted

for my walks in the forest and other wild retreats, and even for my

meetings with Nazzarena, a sort of abstract notion of nature and of

love in which I found intense joy. I invented elusive landscapes and

ideal passions. I was at the age in which one most easily lives in

metaphysical chimeras, when ideas are mistaken for affections, and

the sensibilities have no need of the spring-board of reality to leap

into action. In my dreams I was my own master, until such time as life

should make me independent. I had discovered the independence of the

brain, and that it can supply all that is lacking. And to crown all,

I threw myself into music as into an element which takes one’s own

shape; plastic and so to say liquid, it lent itself to all my longings

with a docility which filled me with wonder. I had come upon the

_Freischütz_ and _Euryanthe_, that forest where the alleys

reach beyond sight. It was more beautiful and especially more vast than

the one which long ago had awakened me to the latent life of things.

By it I scaled mountains higher and more inaccessible than that to

which the shepherd had been leading his flock. And sometimes the sharp

pain of the notes that I drew from my instrument brought back to me

the unforgettable lamentation of the nightingale in love with the

rose: _All night long I wear out my throat for her, but she sleeps

and hears me not_. For her? I did not know her name, I could not

perceive her face, but that she existed I had not the slightest doubt.

But--strange phenomenon--she was no longer Nazzarena: fidelity itself

was but one more chain to break.

With the help of music and of my thoughts I built for myself a palace

into which no visitor was admitted: they thought me present, and simply

absent-minded, when in fact I had retreated to my solitude, the only

place where I was actually myself. This faculty of concentration set me

apart from friendship. No schoolfellow was admitted to my friendship;

so that my family, against which I was in rebellion, by itself alone

represented to me all humanity.

Thus all the seeds dropped during my convalescence were germinating

in me after the lapse of a few years. I was free within myself, and

no one suspected it. My parents were satisfied with my conduct and my

place in school. I had the reputation of being quiet, obedient and

easy to manage, and under the shelter of that reputation I let myself

glide peacefully into a happy state in which I recognised no other law

than my own and which was pretty near to anarchy. I made sacrifices to

contingencies, but they courted for little in comparison with my inward

joys.

When I went home for vacations my coldness and indifference surprised

and saddened my family. Unable to understand them, they attributed

them to humility, to the reserve which was characteristic of me, and

they multiplied efforts to bring me back to natural ways--only to make

me all the more distant. The laugh of Louise, who was now the flower of

the house, was as powerless to thaw me out as the martial exhortations

of Bernard, at home on leave, which simply exasperated me. As for the

two younger children, Nicola and Jamie, I inspired in them a sort of

fear, so that they avoided me. After having alienated them, there was

nothing for me but to be vexed at their bad dispositions, which I was

not slow to do.

Aunt Deen, seeking for a flattering explanation of my changed humour,

discovered this:

“He is so superior!”

When my father got hold of me, with a little time to spare, he tried

all means to resume the conversation that we had had on the hill of

Malpas, that election day. With a secret disquietude which I felt, and

which in a spirit of opposition only anchored me the more firmly in

my attitude, he saw that I had closed my eyes to all that pertained

to the field of observation, whether it were history, the past,

tradition, laws, manners and customs, or practical every-day life, and

confined myself to abstract reading, philosophy, mathematics, or threw

myself still more absorbingly into music--an ambiguous and undefined

régime, the mirages of which he dreaded for me. Deeply affected by

the departure of Mélanie and Stephen and the approaching absence of

Bernard, who was at home merely for a few months before setting out for

his destination in Tonkin, where the war seemed likely to be unending,

he had hoped to talk intimately with me, to win me back, to guide

me. I would listen to him courteously, hardly replying, and he could

not misunderstand my silence and my distant manner. He never wearied

in pointing out to me the superiority which in every profession, in

all the course of human existence, is conferred by a clear vision of

realities. How much intelligence, tact, even diplomacy, he must have

expended in that effort to win me back which I constantly evaded, I now

realise as I recall it all.

Nicola and James, now grown beyond babyhood, used to accompany us in

these walks which were such a bore to me, and which recalled others,

that I had loved; they were interested in his conversation, which

almost became a monologue, and in after years I discovered in them the

impress of these teachings by which they had unconsciously profited,

while I was determinedly refractory to them. Sometimes I would hear in

his voice--suddenly grown imperious--the echo of that which on that

memorable day had thrilled me to the marrow, and I almost expected

to hear him say, as then, _But understand me, poor child. You must

indeed understand me--your future is at stake_--then the excited

voice would calm itself, or would be silent. My father had recognised

the uselessness of his effort.

I was able also effectively to evade the solicitations of my mother,

who sought my confidence and was troubled by my indifference to

religion.

“You don’t pray enough,” she would say to me. “You don’t know how

necessary it is. It is the most real thing in the world.”

I had, however, been clever enough to resume relations with grandfather

without awakening suspicion. We used to practise together, though he

trembled a little and his violin seemed tremulous. Or we would discuss

a sonata or a symphony for hours together. Thus I had watched him

admiringly years ago, in the Café des Navigateurs, getting off into a

corner with Gallus. If any member of the family undertook to join in

our conversation we would gaze at him in a superior manner, as at a

profane person incapable of an intelligent opinion. Music could have

meaning only for us; it belonged to us; and through it we resumed our

former intimacy.

I had entered upon my eighteenth year when the event occurred which

was to decide my future life. The baccalaureates had covered me with

honour, and for a year past I had been preparing for the Central

School, with no particular drawing toward it, and even with perfect

indifference. A certain taste for natural sciences, purposely

abandoned, had for a time given my father the false hope that I should

return to the plans of my childhood, and could even be his successor

some day. But I had chosen the calling of engineer because it would

take me away from home, and permit me to be my own master.

When the time came for us to return home the first figure that we never

failed to see on the platform at the station was that of our father,

who had hastened to meet us. His face would be actually illuminated

with paternal love. I used to greet him as if I had left him the day

before, but he would not let himself be put off so, and would always

open his arms to me as if he were finding me after I had long been

lost. These effusions in public appeared to me very vulgar, and I

evaded them most artfully.

It was the end of July. Examinations over, I had come home for the

vacation. Having thoroughly irritated me by clasping me to his breast,

my father had me get into a carriage, my valise at our feet, and we

took the road to the house, which was at the other end of the town, and

on its outskirts, as I have elsewhere described.

We were crossing the Market Square when a group of the lower sort of

people cast hostile glances at us, accompanied by low growls; then some

one cried,

“Down with Rambert.”

I turned in amazement to my father, who had made no reply, and was

even smiling at those who insulted him;--oh, not that smile that I had

already seen upon his lips when preparing for a conflict, but a smile

almost of sympathy, of commiseration. Why this sudden unpopularity?

They might refuse to elect him, but they had respected, and above all,

feared him. The coachman had already whipped up his horse, a few hoots

pursued us. I could not but ask what it all meant.

“Oh, nothing,” he said. “Some poor creatures. I will tell you about it.”

The household rushed to the steps to meet us. It was the usual

proceeding, at the return of each absent one. Grandfather alone did not

stir, and I heard his violin giving forth its plaintive melody from the

tower chamber. Father told of the manifestations of which we had been

victims.

“Oh, the wretches!” exclaimed Aunt Deen, who by reason of rheumatism

in the leg limped a little, but whom years had robbed of none of her

war-like virtue. “They came all the way here a while ago; they or some

others. Fortunately the gate was closed.”

She had barricaded us against “them,” our enemies.

“Oh, my God!” murmured mother--“if only nothing happens to you, Michel!”

Father explained the recent incident. The municipality which had

been elected three years previously had given orders for important

aqueducts to be built to bring water to the public fountains. These

works had been awarded to a somewhat unscrupulous and even disreputable

contractor, who had been put forward by important political influences.

It appeared that within a few days father had discovered two or three

cases of typhus, both in the hospital and in the working people’s

quarter, and he attributed them to the water recently introduced into

the city, which must have been either contaminated or ill trapped. If

he had been correct in his diagnosis of the origin of the disease he

dreaded an epidemic. He had therefore at once laid before the mayor a

request for the immediate closing of the suspected fountains, and had

asked for a decree enjoining the use of boiled water only, with other

precautionary measures. Whereupon the mayor, who was a grocer by the

name of Baboulin, being advised by his deputy, Martinod, had refused

the request out of deference to public sentiment. Our town, built like

an amphitheatre above the lake, was a chosen summer resort of a large

colony of strangers. If there should be any talk of contagion the

season’s business would be ruined at a stroke. And besides, it would

have been an avowal of the inadequacy of those famous improvements of

which, according to custom, much had been made to add to the fame of

the town. The quarrel had leaked out, and the public had violently

taken the side against the prophet of evil.

I listened to the story with the indulgence of a traveller whose

duty it is to share politely in the interests of his hosts. This was

provincial gossip, quick to be born, soon to die; and I had come from

Paris. Our friend Abbé Heurtevant dropped in at nightfall to lend

strength to them. Since the decease of the Count de Chambord he had

predicted nothing but plagues, wars, cyclones and catastrophes of all

sorts. He was in his element now, and scented from afar an odour of

cholera which would re-establish his blemished reputation and punish

the Republic.

“I hear,” he said to my father, “that they are going to give you a tin

pan serenade to-night.”

“A serenade,” repeated Aunt Deen. “I should like to see them! I’ll

empty a boiler of boiling water on their heads, since they won’t have

boiled water to drink.”

“Very well,” said my father. “I’ll wait.”

After dinner, mother, who was anxious, asked us to recite prayers

in common. I hesitated to join in these invocations which I deemed

puerile, and I only did repeat them with my lips, without heart,

merely, I said to myself, to avoid sowing discord the first day. As

for grandfather, he had valiantly mounted to his tower to direct his

telescope upon I know not what planet.

About nine o’clock we heard a formidable clamour, but it was far away.

For a time it neither drew nearer nor became more distant. The crowd

that made it must be marking time. We distinctly distinguished a sort

of refrain of two notes, the meaning of which we could not grasp.

Suddenly the bell rang at the gate.

“There they are!” exclaimed Aunt Deen.

But no; under the gas jet only one shadow was distinguishable, and that

a small one. Aunt Deen and mother were of opinion that the gate should

be opened only for a good reason.

“Probably some one is sick,” observed my father; and he himself went to

the gate. He recognised in the nocturnal visitor Mimi Pachoux, who had

furtively hastened thither to tell us:

“It appears, Doctor, that there are other cases; and they are

assaulting the mayor’s office.”

“Oh, truly? What is it that they are shouting?”

“Resign! Resign!”

“Very well, good friend. I am going.”

When this dialogue was reported to Aunt Deen she wanted to reward our

labourer’s devotion, but father checked her.

“Oh, don’t be in a hurry, aunt. He ran away from me these last days. He

simply anticipates the popular movement, when he is perfectly sure of

its direction.”

Then turning to me he asked, “Will you go with me? It will be a change

from your studies.”

It was one of those fine moonless nights of July when the stars seem to

hang low from the dark dome of heaven, like suspended lamps. We reached

the square of the City Hall, which was black with people, all the air

resounding with the one cry,

“Resign! Resign!”

We were at the back of the crowd, which was stamping and vociferating

before the fast-closed municipal building. There were groups of

citizens gathered from the cafés, into which the news had doubtless

spread, and there were also many family groups, with children in their

arms, the women more excited than the men, some of them demanding that

the mayor should be ducked in the fountain. To say truth, such an act

would have required considerable good will. To my mind, all those

Chinese shadows gesticulating in the uncertain light appeared supremely

ridiculous. Absorbed in my own interior life, I took not the slightest

interest in their goings on.

Suddenly a light shone forth from a room of the City Hall which

opened upon a balcony. Mayor Baboulin had decided to reassure his

constituency. But it was in vain that he essayed to make himself heard;

epithets of all sorts were flying through the air at him, prisoner,

traitor, knave, and others less elegant but even more sonorous.

Another man appeared beside him. My old friend Deputy Martinod,

trusting to his popularity and his gifts of speech, came forward. But

the hulla-baloos continued, while vituperations even more familiar and

offensive were showered upon him. In the gaslight I recognised near me

the inseparable Gallus and Merinos conscientiously reviling their old

friend.

“You see,” said my father, making no attempt, to moderate his voice,

“what to expect of the populace. Yesterday they were hurrahing for

them; to-day they insult them.”

I confess that I was surprised to hear him express himself so freely,

in that strong, ringing voice which always so disturbed grandfather.

Only a few hours ago, as we were driving from the station, hadn’t the

populace hooted at him, too? What if they should begin again? We were

not behind the shelter of walls nor under the protection of the police.

Just at that moment one of the demonstrators turned, crimson-faced and

open-mouthed. A light was reflected full upon him; it was Tem Bossette,

in person, facing us, full and overflowing like a wine-bottle,

gesticulating even more vigorously than the others. The moment he saw

us he cried aloud:

“Long live Rambert!”

All around him uprose a great tumult, and to my stupefaction every

one was crying, “Long live Rambert!” at the top of his lungs. Father

touched me on the shoulder, whispering,

“Let’s get out of this: we’ve had enough!”

A little more and our retreat would have been cut off, and we should

have been obliged to submit to the unexpected ovation. Rapidly, before

they could get into line to accompany us, we gained a cross street and

hastened to the house, where the family were awaiting us. The shadow

at the window told us of the disquietude which our absence had caused.

Father gaily related what had happened, describing Tem’s intervention.

“Good fellow!” exclaimed Aunt Deen approvingly.

“Oh, he is a worse case than Mimi. The last few days he hasn’t even

said good morning to me.”

“What business is it of his?” asked grandfather, who was troubled about

the epidemic. “He is in no danger. He has never been a hard drinker.”

“Hark!” exclaimed mother--so quick to be fearful for us.

The expected clamour was certainly approaching; the sounds were growing

more distinct; in a moment they would be intelligible.

“Oh, my God!” she added; “what is going to happen next!”

Father laughingly reassured her:

“This time, Valentine, they are cheering. It’s more than I asked for.

This afternoon I was only fit for a ducking; this evening I am a

saviour.”

How little he cared for public favour! He wore his battle smile, and

I thought it very contemptuous. In the mysticism in which I had taken

refuge I held myself aloof from all mankind; but so long as I was not

obliged to associate with them I was quite willing to grant them all

the virtues, even that of consistency. The crowd was already defiling

before the gate, singing,

_It’s Rambert, Rambert, Rambert_,

_It’s Rambert that we need_!

Was there then only one Rambert? Grandfather, for whom no one was

calling, slipped away, I alone observing his movement of retreat;

he was probably going back to his tower, returning quietly to his

telescope; the planet that he had been observing had not yet sunk below

the horizon.

I would fain have followed him, but father asked me to look out. I

looked, without interest, at the confused mass whose surges were

beating against the gate and the wall of enclosure. It might have been

a long, enormous serpent, a long, enormous mole-cricket whose body

filled the breadth of the street, and whose tail must have stretched

far away, beyond the turn of the road.

Suddenly the gate gave way, and the great beast, like the gipsies long

ago, invaded the short avenue and the flower borders. In a moment it

was assaulting the house. Aunt Deen, at my side, was torn between the

joys of popularity and the instinctive defence of our garden.

By way of checking the onrush of the multitude father opened the

window. He was saluted with a tempest of applause, but easily commanded

silence, his voice ringing out like a deep-toned church bell:

“My friends,” he said, “we shall do all we can to check the progress of

this scourge. Count upon me, go back home, and above all, invoke the

help of God.”

Invoke the help of God! But it was he whom they looked upon as

Providence! In all that manifestation my mother had been the only one

who had thought of praying. Aunt Deen was drinking in her nephew’s

words, but their eloquence touched me not at all. I could have wished

him to utter a few noble sentiments in praise of science, which alone

was capable of dealing with epidemics and preventing contagions; but

of science my father had said never a word. At that moment I noticed

how large a number of good women were in the crowd, some of them

brandishing their babies at arms’ length, as if offering them to my

father. No doubt he had been talking for the good women.

Nevertheless he had gained his point. Little by little the crowd was

calming down and gradually dribbling away. They passed out of the gate,

and the lovely summer night, but now torn with shoutings, slowly gained

its empire over the last lingerers in the garden, over the roads and

the fields, and gave them back to silence.

Events began to hurry one upon another, the very next morning. The

municipal council, responsible for the defective work upon the

aqueducts, resigned under general obloquy and contempt.

“There are your electors!” said our father at table. “First rejoicing

in the triumph of the mayor and council over conservatism, and now

demanding the disgrace of those very men and dragging them in the mud

with shame.”

In a flash I saw myself again in the Café des Navigateurs a few years

before, drinking champagne with Martinod and his heelers, in honour

of grandfather’s candidacy, and far from revolting me, the memory

touched my heart. Then, a child, I had quaffed a sort of delicious

recklessness, something like that love-languor that Nazzarena, passing

out of my life, had left with me, listening to those fine theories

which were not very clear to me but were preparing me for liberty

nevertheless.

The excitement increased in the town with the increase in the number

of deaths, which, however, were still few. The exact figures which my

father gave by no means corresponded with those that were printed in

the newspapers, or flew from lip to lip. He had forbidden us to go into

the town, grandfather approving:

“One never knows how those things get caught--a mere nothing is enough.

It’s quite enough to have so many sick persons coming here.”

I had found grandfather aging, when I came home. He was nearly eighty,

of course, but he had so long kept his air of youth, the alert step due

to his long walks, and even his bright eyes, their sarcastic glint only

emphasised by the gathering wrinkles. Now he was growing bent, and his

gaze seemed dimmed. Still he clung to life, and perhaps all the more as

he felt his strength failing.

The most absurd and contradictory rumours were flying about everywhere,

and political passions had free course. An individual had been caught

putting poison into the river;--a priest, said the anti-clericals; a

free mason, said the others. A frightful mania of suspicion began to

run wild. An unlucky fellow with a pimpled face just missed of being

strung up, on the pretext of spreading contagion, and was only saved by

my father’s intervention:

“Pimples on the face are the only ones that mean nothing!” he had

shouted, just in time.

He brought home to us all these incidents and rumours, for we went

nowhere; he even carefully disinfected himself on returning from his

rounds.

Next, the villages below the water-works thought the contagion had

reached them, and were struck with panic, their inhabitants crowding

to the town. We could see them passing with their carts, their cattle,

their furniture, like fugitives before the face of war. Brawls arose

from attempts to keep them out.

Then suddenly the epidemic, which until then had been under control,

its ravages greatly exaggerated, took on a disturbing character,

whether in consequence of the crowded state of the town and the lack

of hygiene, or because the air had really become tainted. The general

terror became itself a danger. Pestilence and famine were said to be

upon us. Abbé Heurtevant, who, all devotion to the sufferers, yet

seemed to breathe in a sort of consolation from the atmosphere of

catastrophe, seeing in all this the fulfilment of his prophecies, and

who could not but discern signs of divine intervention, was formally

accused of sorcery, and was obliged to run to earth in his own room for

several days, lest evil should befall him. Mlle Tapinois had given the

signal for departure, abandoning her work-rooms, which mother took up

without comment. The hotels were emptied, and all the people who could

fly from town fled.

The lack of organisation increased the evil. The municipality had

resigned and the prefect was taking the waters in Germany. The electors

were convoked on a call of urgency. Then came a rush for father. Every

day there was a crowd before the gate crying, _Long live Rambert_!

or _It’s Rambert we must have_. Aunt Deen was never surfeited with

this refrain, which was music to her ears. Only he--there was no one

but Michel.

I did not see and I cannot describe the despairing town, the shops

closed for fear of pillage, the inhabitants torn by party enmity,

haunted by all sorts of suspicion, clinging to every superstition,

ravaged by bitterness and poverty, and given over to terror. But I did

see with my own eyes, at our very feet, there under our very windows,

the town entreating one man, submitting to him, grovelling before him,

whom formerly they would have none of. The multitude dragged itself in

the dust, moaned, uttered howls of desire like an infuriated dog. And

not comprehending its distress I despised it.

My father had lost his authority over me, not from having abused it,

notwithstanding that I had imagined tyranny in some of his acts, but

perhaps--who can say?--for not having exerted it, that evening when he

brought me back from the Café des Navigateurs, that day when in the

tower chamber I had braved him in defence of grandfather. He had no

suspicion either of my first experience of love, which had played havoc

in my heart, nor of the intensity of those aspirations after liberty

which had been slowly infiltrated into it by all those walks and

conversations.

Yet he had felt my detachment from the house, and had trusted to

clemency to bring me back. And that clemency had belittled him in my

eyes. His prestige had been made up of his never-failing victories,

and had I not heard him in mother’s room, uttering the laments of one

conquered? By his pain I had measured my own importance. The greater

price he set upon the reconquest of myself, the stronger I felt to

resist him. Perhaps he would have kept his empire over me had he not

showed such an excess of paternal solicitude. Would it be dangerous for

a sovereign to take too much pains in training his heir and fitting him

to succeed to the throne? Must one put more confidence in words and

acts than in the influence which one tries to exert over minds? Each

generation differs from the former in the expression of its ideas if

not in the ideas themselves. It thinks to create all things anew: life

will teach it that nothing is created, and that everything goes on by

the same processes.

Now, in the time of danger, that authority from which I had withdrawn

myself imposed itself upon every one else. My father had been in

charge of the medical service. Now, elected almost unanimously, he was

entrusted with the town.

II

THE ALPETTE

OUR father and mother held a council of war, in which the resolution

was taken that we should be sent away. The family owned, on the uplands

of one of the high valleys, a chalet which we called the Alpette,

standing by itself in a clearing in the pines. In favourable seasons

we used to spend a month of the long vacation there. A dilapidated

stagecoach used to climb to the nearest village in four or five hours.

It was not easy to get supplies up there, and we should have to be

content with frugal and modest fare; but the air was redolent of

balsam, and we should be beyond all danger of contagion.

“The epidemic is spreading,” father told us. “You will all go to-morrow

morning except your mother, who will not leave me.”

Perhaps he had resolved to remain alone, but had encountered her

refusal.

“That’s an excellent idea,” said grandfather approvingly. “We are good

for nothing here, but rather, in the way.”

“Well! I for one shall not go,” declared Aunt Deen, shaking her head.

“I am a part of the building.”

Father urged that she had her brother to take care of, but this

argument was by no means favourably received.

“He can take care of himself well enough. He is perfectly well. And

besides, Louise will look after him.”

Louise urged her desire to stay. We thought she was joking, for

she said it laughingly, but she firmly insisted. Couldn’t she be

of service, visiting the sick, nursing them even? Wasn’t every

willing person needed? Between her and Aunt Deen a debate arose, the

unselfishness of which was at the time unperceived by me; but Aunt Deen

insisted so hard that she carried her point.

Encouraged by this example, I signified to my parents my fixed

intention not to leave town, but to play my part in it also. This was

by way of affirming my personality--my personality of barely eighteen

years!--much more than as a boast of courage. The idea of death,

either my own or that of the others, had not occurred to me. I did not

apprehend the slightest danger. No doubt father was the most exposed,

both by his profession and his functions, but to me he seemed immortal.

I was simply thinking of gaining a little importance.

Father listened to me patiently, and then replied that if I had begun

to study medicine, as he had hoped, he should not have hesitated to

make use of me, notwithstanding his affection and his fears; it would

have been a right which I might have claimed; but that having taken

another course, I had no good reason for remaining in a vitiated

atmosphere, where I could be of no use, at the risk of succumbing to

the disease any day. He thanked me for my offer, but could not accept

it. The mountain air would be good for my health, which would improve

up there: I was somewhat delicate, I should return stronger.

The calm refusal simply exasperated me. I discerned in it a contempt

that was not to be endured, and I persisted in claiming the post as if

my honour was involved.

“I regret infinitely, father, my inability to yield in this matter, but

I judge that I ought to stay, and I shall stay.”

The words came grandly. He fixed me with his piercing eyes, and did not

even raise his voice:

“I rule in my house, before ruling in the town, my boy. I give you this

order: You will go to-morrow with your grandfather, Louise and the

two younger children. I am in charge of the whole city: we shall see

whether my son will be the first to disobey.”

He turned away. So peremptorily had he spoken that a sense of the

impossibility of resistance took possession of me. He had been

humouring me this long time; he had thought from my reserve that I was

indifferent if not hostile, and he cherished the hope of regaining my

confidence. Now he suddenly abandoned all methods of conciliation and

put me back in the ranks like a mere soldier, not like a future chief.

Without caring the least in the world about taking active service

among the hospital staff, I champed my bit with rage, as if I had been

subjected to the most cruel abuse. Grandfather, delighted with this

outcome, consoled me good-naturedly.

“Oho! what do you care? He has a craze for giving orders. We shall be

very well off up there.”

Our preparations filled the afternoon. Grandfather himself brought

down from the tower his barometer, violin, pipes and almanacs. The

repeated journeys put him out of breath, but he would stop for no one.

The rest of the packing was of no interest to him, but concerned Aunt

Deen, to whom he had long ago given over the care of his clothes and

linen. At nightfall Abbé Heurtevant came for a visit. Father was at the

hospital, or the mayor’s office, and mother at the work-rooms where bed

clothing for the sick poor was being made. Grandfather, with new found

resolution, refused to have the door opened, and inquired from the

window whether our friend had been disinfected.

Nothing would do but for the abbé to pass through the disinfecting room

that had been set up in the house, after which he was welcomed with

gladness, and grandfather even offered him his copy of the prophecies

of Michel Nostradamus. M. Heurtevant accepted the gift with small

enthusiasm; he was acquainted with the Centuries and found them obscure

and contradictory.

“Yes, you prefer Sister Rose-Colombe and the Abbey of Orval. And what

catastrophes have you to report, Abbé?”

“In the first place, your labourer Tem Bossette died this morning of

the pestilence.”

“Ah!” said grandfather, quickly adding, as if finding an excuse for not

grieving, “he was a drunkard.”

“Poor Tem!” sighed Aunt Deen. “Had he confessed?”

“He had no time--the complaint seized him like a thunderclap.”

“An alcoholic,” observed grandfather.

My aunt went on questioning our guest about persons of our acquaintance:

“How about Beatrix? And Mimi Pachoux?”

“Don’t be uneasy about your Mimi, mademoiselle; he is helping to bury

the dead, and is even superintending the entire force of gravediggers.

His zeal is magnificent; he multiplies himself, he is at every funeral.

As for The Hanged, I think he is down with the fever.”

“I will go and see him,” said Aunt Deen simply, whereupon her brother

looked at her with surprise, and some disapprobation.

But the abbé, with incomparable ease, had already passed from special

misfortunes to general calamities. The contagion would be sure to

spread, it would not be checked until it had reached Paris. It would

decimate the capital, that sink of all iniquities, and would constrain

politicians to reflect. It would be as good as a war, in the matter of

moral renovation. And the lilies would bloom again.

“They will bloom again,” Aunt Deen did not fail to repeat gravely.

The description of these approaching misfortunes affected grandfather,

who changed the subject of conversation.

“I say, Abbé, if you will come to the Alpette to see us, we will

give you some Satan bolets, and even if you don’t bring too much bad

news, some negro head bolets, which are at least eatable and of a

savoury flavour. Or rather, no! don’t put yourself out to come. There

is no disinfecting apparatus up there, and you would be capable of

contaminating us all.”

The next morning a two-horse brake, ordered especially for us, came

to take us and our parcels. Father superintended the embarkation, and

hastened it, for he was being called upon from all quarters at once. At

the house, whenever any difficulty arose he had always been immediately

sought for, all calling in one voice, _Monsieur Michel_! _Where

is Monsieur Michel_! In these days, all through the city, the

rallying cry was, _Monsieur Rambert_! or more briefly, _the

doctor_, or _the mayor_.

“Oho!” said grandfather lightly, “he has enough to give orders to now.”

Grandfather climbed into the vehicle first, with his instruments, which

he would not let go, though the violin case was much in the way.

Like little Jamie, he had all the gaiety of a school boy on vacation.

Never had he seemed so to feel the attractions of the Alpette. Louise,

on the contrary, and Nicola, imitating her sister, whom she admired,

manifested an emotion which for my part I deemed excessive. They clung

to our parents with tears, as if it were a case of prolonged absence.

“Come, children,” said father, “make haste and have no fears.”

My own adieus to him were of marked coldness, because of the scene of

the previous day. He had constrained me to obedience, and had wounded

my pride; I could not forget it so soon; dignity obliged me to assume

an offended air.

The smallest details of that departure, upon which my memory has

dwelt so much, vainly seeking something to mitigate its bitterness,

stand out before me with a distinctness which time has never blurred.

Every one was more or less impatient, the horses because of the flies

that tormented them, the coachman out of compassion for his cattle,

grandfather and Jamie in their haste to enjoy the pleasures of the

journey, Louise and Nicola in their sadness over going away, Aunt Deen

because she dreaded the tumult of her feelings, and I, to get rid of

the uneasiness that was overcoming me. Mother was trying to keep calm.

Father alone did so, naturally. When my turn came to get in, last of

all, he seemed to hesitate for a brief moment as if he would have

detained me, spoken to me. I do not precisely know what it was that

showed me this, but I am sure of it. And once in my seat I felt an

unreasoning desire to get out again. Was it an instinctive longing for

reconciliation? How I long to feel sure that it was! But the feeling

was too vague for me to be sure of it now. Taking my place on the same

seat with grandfather, I gave expression to my inward feeling by an act

of ill humour, seizing hold of the violin case, which chafed my knees,

and laying it roughly in the bottom of the carriage.

“Be careful! It’s delicate,” observed grandfather protestingly.

I can still see the vibrating light in the air, and the shining of the

road in the sunlight.

“All right?” asked the coachman, clambering to his seat.

“Forward!” ordered father.

And mother added the prayer that she always uttered at each parting.

“God be with you!”

Our heavy vehicle was already in motion, and these were the last words

that we heard. _Forward_, and _God be with you_; they mingle,

become one, always accompany one another in my memory, and whenever to

this day I set out upon a journey, it seems to me that I hear them.

At the turn of the road, down below the entrance gate, I saw the three

figures standing out in the glaring day, Aunt Deen somewhat massive;

my mother’s, more delicate, and the tall, proud figure of my father,

lifting up his head. Why did I not call out? The one word, “Father!”

would have pleased him, and he would have understood. His figure

revealed such force, so rich a vitality, so dominant an authority,

that it was of course of no use to humiliate oneself to give him

satisfaction. I should always have time enough if I wanted to do

so,--later, later.

Grandfather was fumbling about my legs to rescue his violin case

and I had to help him. We passed under the chestnut tree that had

overshadowed--just one moment--the departing Nazzarena, Nazzarena

laughing and showing her teeth. And the house was lost behind us.

I was not slow to forget this uncomfortable parting in the enchantment

of my new life in the chalet of the Alpette. For the first time I was

absolute master of my days. Grandfather exercised not the slightest

oversight. He liked to sit for hours together on a bench on the

pleasantest side of the house, warming himself in the sun and smoking

his pipe. He took no walks except in the immediate neighbourhood,

going with difficulty even to the pine woods, for his legs had become

weak and could not carry him far. Once in the woods, he would devote

himself to his favourite pursuit, which had not changed, the hunt after

mushrooms. He especially pursued and not without success the negro head

bolet, which grows well in the shadow of the pines. Jamie and his

inseparable Nicola used to go with him, and stoop for him to retrieve

the game which he pointed out to them. He preferred their childhood to

my youth, and I was not jealous of them. He never tried to establish

with them the intimacy that had formerly existed between him and me. He

shrank from all fatigue, from any conversation which would have led to

discussions, explanations, was contented with trifling facts not open

to debate. For my part, I preferred my solitude.

Whether from sisterly affection or because she had received

instructions to this effect, Louise busied herself with us even to

obsession; she would have cut herself in two to be at the same time

with me and with the two little ones. When she had become convinced

of the peaceful, commonplace character of grandfather’s conversation,

she turned all the more to me, hoping to be my confidant, and to

gain a little influence over me. She was only two years my senior,

and her conduct filled me with wonder, for nothing down in the town

had given any indication that altitude would so totally change her.

Pretty, lively, care-free, I had deemed her rather volatile and even

a bit capricious--and had been not the less pleased with her for

that. At times she would rush at her piano with intense zeal, and

again she would not touch it for weeks. She filled the house with her

laughter, her charming spirits, her quick movements. “She won’t be one

to interfere with me,” I had thought in the carriage. And now, behold

her suddenly changed into something like the head of a community or

a family boarding house, thoughtful and kindly, but exacting, even

arbitrary. One must be punctual at meals, explain his absences, guard

his words before the children, not turn either principles or people

into ridicule. Had her responsibilities changed her and turned her

head? She assumed the place of our parents in matters of conscience,

but I gave her to understand that boys didn’t obey girls, and that any

directions she might have received did not concern me. She insisted,

and almost from the outset we were in a state of tension which was

almost conflict.

It was the Sunday after our arrival. The village was two kilometres

distant, and only one mass--high mass--was celebrated. Louise informed

us of the fact, and at what she judged the proper moment she called

to us to set out. Grandfather, who never went to church, raised a

disinterested objection.

“Public places are the most unhealthy. Beware of the epidemic.”

“There has not been a single case of typhus in the whole valley,” said

Louise triumphantly.

“Very well,” said grandfather, filling his morning pipe.

I then informed my sister that I had planned to take a walk

and regretted that I could not escort her. She looked at me in

astonishment, such astonishment that I can still see the surprise in

her limpid eyes.

“What, you are not going to mass, Francis? There is only one.”

“No,” I replied with my most assured manner.

“It isn’t possible!”

Her eyes, those limpid eyes, at once filled with tears, and I

remembered the first mass that I had missed. Pride forbade me to yield,

pride and also that new, vague belief which my imagination had built

up. Louise pushed Nicola and Jamie before her, and turned to me, her

book of hours in her hand, still hoping to move me.

“I beg you, come with us.”

If she had added, “to please me,” perhaps I would have yielded, so

alarmed did she appear. She no doubt would have deemed that plea

unworthy of its purpose. This time I refused still more emphatically.

“I shall be obliged to write to mamma,” she urged as a last argument.

“As you please.”

She did not, however, carry out her threat. Her sense of delicacy

warned her not to add to our parents’ anxieties in the midst of their

battle with the pestilence. On the contrary, she doubled her attention

to me, trying to win me to her, to gain my friendship, my confidence.

With innate art she became an improvised mother of the family, ever

trying to bring us together, to group us, warring against the isolation

in which I delighted.

When a letter came she would call us together and read it aloud to

us. We received letters from home very regularly, and they forwarded

Mélanie’s to us from the hospital in London, where she was caring for

the sick; Bernard’s from his expedition in Tonkin; Stephen’s, who was

completing his theological studies in Rome. Through her the absent ones

visited us, and if it had depended only upon her we should have carried

on at the Alpette the same life as at home. It was precisely that which

revolted me, and I rose in rebellion against the twenty-year-old will

which, with unlooked for tenacity, went counter to mine.

To place myself beyond her influence I formed the habit of leaving our

chalet with a book the first thing in the morning, returning only for

meals. Uneasy about me, she would remain upon the doorstep until I had

disappeared, and very often, at my return, I would find her in the same

place, as if she had never lost sight of me. Her interest extended even

to my reading. The library at the Alpette contained only a few books,

some odd volumes of Buffon and Lacépède, a “Dictionary of Conversation”

in fifty volumes, a copy of “Jocelyn,” and a few less important

works. Even the Dictionary did not terrify me and I would resolutely

carry with me the volumes containing biographical notices, or systems

of philosophy. I found myself at ease in the boldest or the most

obscure of their conceptions. I understood them before I had completed

their demonstration, whether they put the universe in subjection to

the ego, or whether they put man in subjection to the universe left

to itself. Still, I was inclined to believe that everything depended

upon our intelligence, and that it alone, by its sole power breathed

existence into things, the laws of which were fixed by it. I have never

since been able to regain such facility in moving in the abstract, nor

such pleasure and pride.

When wearied by these adventures in metaphysics, I would refresh

myself with the poetry of “Jocelyn.” It harmonised so perfectly with

the nature that surrounded me that it seemed to become its natural

expression and I ceased to think of distinguishing between them. How

many times, under the pines, have I repeated lines which from that time

have been fixed in my memory:

I went from tree to tree and loved them all;

I took from them a sense of tears and wept;

Believing thus, so strong the deep heart’s call.

That answering thrills through all their rough bark swept.

So greatly did I long to feel pervading everything around me, in the

soul of the trees or the spirit of the earth, the love which I refused

to receive from the family. When I reached the top of some hill, it was

in the apostrophe

Oh, mountain tops, pure air and floods of light!

that my rapture found expression. The serenity of the night spoke to

me of _peace, love, eternity_. I dreamed of Laurence, and had no

difficulty in picturing him to myself, such a model of precision did

his portrait seem to me:

Never the hand of God on fifteen years

Had marked a soul more lovely or more human.

What more was wanting to feed a love which, having no object, created

its image for itself?

Another book, however, was destined to enter still more deeply into

my sensibility, corresponding as it did with that condition of

independence and enfranchisement to which I deemed myself to have

attained. Into the pile of almanacs brought thither by grandfather

had slipped that copy of the “Confessions” which had puzzled me as

a child, and which I had taken for a manual of piety. The innocent

_Limping Messenger of Berne and Vevey_ came leading by the hand

that Jean-Jacques whom, long before I knew him, I had heard spoken of

as if he were still living and we might meet him anywhere in our walks.

I had read in school only short fragments of his writings in which I

had found nothing personal. I fell upon the narrative of that troubled

life, which at first disgusted me. The theft of the ribbon in the house

of Mme de Vercellis and the cowardly accusation that followed, certain

physiological details which I could ill understand, the title of

_maman_ bestowed upon Mme de Warens, produced upon me the effect

of immodest confidences, and all alone as I was in the forest, or lying

in the grass on the top of the mountain, I felt myself blushing to the

ears. My deepest nature resisted, but by an insensible decline I came

even to admire the man who could humiliate himself by such avowals; not

perceiving their pride I felt giddied by their truth.

After that the volume never left me. Louise, disturbed by this

preoccupation, tried to wield some censorship. One evening as I came

in from gazing at the stars--those in the South, which I most easily

recognised--I found her under the lamp looking into the “Confessions.”

She did not see me and I watched her; she suddenly closed the book, and

perceiving me, her indignation burst forth:

“You have no right to read this book.”

“I read what I please.”

She appealed to grandfather, who declined all responsibility.

“Oh, every one is free. And at least Jean-Jacques is sincere.”

The love passages excited me, and what rendered them more precious and

more seductive to me was the writers lovely way of praising at once the

peace of the country and the happiness of bucolic life. In the peace

that environed me I felt more plainly the movements of my own heart. I

was at the feet of Mme Basile _without daring so much as to touch her

dress. A slight movement of her finger,--hand lightly pressed against

my lips, were the only favours I ever received from her, and the memory

of these slight favours transports me as I think of them_. I would

try to represent to myself the gentle air of those fair women whom

no heart could resist, and--shall I be believed?--I found a personal

application in a lament which touched my hardly completed and already

disquieted eighteen years. _Tormented with the desire to love without

ever finding its satisfaction, I saw myself drawing nigh to the gates

of old age and dying without having lived_. When I climbed high

enough to see the lake, far away at the foot of the hills, I would

repeat the simple aspiration, _All I desire is a sure friend, a

loving wife, a cow and a little boat_, and my growing exaltation of

sentiment seemed endowed with innocence. I could have wept for love

while eating strawberries smothered in sweet cream.

Thus the period through which I was passing was very closely linked

with that of my convalescence, of which it became in a sort the

completion. Alone by myself I resumed the walks which a few years

before I had taken with grandfather. His friend Jean-Jacques was with

me in his stead. These were not the same places, but in natural aspects

there was small difference between them. They had the same glamour of

wildness, that flutter of vegetation stirred by the slightest breath,

the sparkle of waters; and the greater altitude even added a more

exhilarating air, farther distances, less accessible to the works of

man, a new exaltation. In the mountains the holdings are without walls

or gates. No enclosure mars the beauty of the land, and individual

ownership is not apparent,--that ownership which, as I knew from

grandfather’s teachings, corrupts the heart of man and fills it with

greed, jealousy and cupidity. On the mountains field and forest belong

to every one and to no one, like the sun and the air, like health. The

upper pastures, whither the shepherd who in one sentence had revealed

longing to me, was leading his sheep,--now I was treading their short

grass. Mountain climbing thrilled me with an ardour for conquest, and

with each height gained I hoped to meet her whom I was awaiting but

who continually evaded me. She was not Nazzarena, whom I had loved and

whom now my dreams disdained; who seemed to me too young, too simple.

I thought rather of the unknown lady of the pavilion, or still more of

her who had appeared before me on the road, all in white with a hat

trimmed with cherries, and a flower-like face, she whose parasol made

an aureola about her, and whom I had called Helen since I knew that her

beauty was like that of the immortal goddesses.

I was alone, deliciously alone, and in love, with no beloved one. I

was perfectly happy, and never realised that I was torturing my sister

Louise, whose affection I misunderstood. I was free.

By reason of the difficulty of procuring provisions our table was the

most frugal in the world. We lived upon eggs, potatoes, cheese, and

on Sundays had the luxury of a fowl. Grandfather was never tired of

extolling the excellencies of this fare, and the benefits of pastoral

life. It was easy for me to persuade myself of the excellence of our

mode of living. I took less and less interest in the news from town

that reached us by the diligence. Once or twice, to give us fuller

intelligence, they sent up the farmer himself, so that in our hermitage

we knew the number of deaths and the ravages of the pestilence. The

Hanged, who was dead, had made a most edifying end, Aunt Deen being

with him to the last. Gallus and Merinos were safe and sound.

“They are always in luck,” observed grandfather.

The farmer shook his head as if to say that the last word hadn’t

been said yet, and that the ravages of the epidemic were not over.

Of Martinod he knew nothing; he was still in hiding. Our friend Abbé

Heurtevant had resisted but he was undermined; however he still had

life enough to predict catastrophes.

“May we go back?” Louise would ask each time. This astonished

grandfather and me, for we were in no hurry.

“Not yet, Miss; Master Michael has said like this, that the moment

hasn’t come yet.”

A lazaretto had been set up for doubtful cases, the two hospitals

were crowded, those who went in or out of the city were examined. A

series of edicts had been issued by the mayor, ordering the most minute

precautions.

“It’s awful,” concluded the farmer, who was giving these details.

Grandfather declared that we were perfectly comfortable at the

Alpette, but Louise was chafing with impatience.

Little by little the days grew shorter. After the month of August,

which was very warm, September came, with fresher breezes, and

September passed. The oaks and birches in the forest were changing

colour among the changeless pines, the oaks turning red and the birches

golden. The dried tufts of bushes on the rocks took on a scarlet tint.

I was sometimes overtaken by the darkness which rose rapidly from the

hollow of the valley, and losing my way was forced to seek the aid of a

shepherd in some hamlet whose twinkling lights shone out and guided me.

At last we were informed that the pestilence was abating, and we might

soon leave the Alpette. I heard the news without pleasure, intoxicated

with liberty as I had become during my long period of idleness. Still,

we were to remain a few days longer.

III

THE END OF A REING

ALL night a high wind had been blowing, but by morning it had fallen.

October was coming in badly. After breakfast I went out to see what

damage the storm had wrought. Autumn had come suddenly. In the woods

the oak leaves and beech leaves, leaves red and golden, torn from the

trees where they had been glowing like flowers, rustled under my tread,

and as in old times when I was little and used to steal out to gather

forbidden nuts and crack them afterwards on the fire dogs, I let my

feet drag, delighting in their crisp and plaintive chime.

Returning at nightfall I saw a cart standing before the door of the

chalet. The headlight was not lighted and it was growing dark, so that

I did not perceive till I was close by that it was our farmer’s cart.

The horse had not been taken out, but no one was watching it, though

some one had taken the precaution to put a blanket over its back.

“Well, Stephen,” said I, entering the kitchen where the farmer was

warming himself, for it was already cold on the mountains, “what brings

you here?”

We always called him by his first name, as is the custom in our

country, although he was already old. His hands were outstretched

toward the stove, but he turned his wrinkled, shaven face toward me,

the lamp, that moment lighted, revealing it clearly to me.

His light eyes, faded through long service in all weathers, seemed not

to see me clearly.

“Ah, Master Francis,” he murmured low, as he rose.

I can not tell why, but the meaningless exclamation gave me a painful

impression.

“You haven’t come for us?” I asked.

He was about to reply when we were joined by my sister Louise, who had

been told of his arrival. She greeted him in a friendly way and asked

what news he brought from town. He seemed in no haste to reply.

“The news is,” he said at last, “that Madame wants you.”

“Madame?” asked Louise.

“Very well,” I observed, “and how soon?”

“To be sure it is too late for you to go down to-night. The beast is

tired and it is already dark. To-morrow morning, very early.”

Why such haste? We should hardly have time for our packing. I was

about to protest, but the farmer slipped away--he must put out the

horse, and get the cart under cover. During his absence I protested

against so hurried a departure. In fact the prospect of quitting this

place filled me with sadness, and I again lived through the sense of

desolation which had come over me in the wood, strewn with the dead

leaves. Louise paid no attention and I saw that she was crying. Was she

so sorry to go?

“I am afraid,” she said to me.

Afraid of what? Grandfather, being informed of our recall, showed as

little enthusiasm as I.

“We weren’t so badly off here,” he said. “We could do as we chose.”

As if he hadn’t always done as he chose! But what was Louise afraid of?

By degrees she told us. For the farmer to be sent for us, there must be

some one sick at our house, some one gravely ill. He had said “Madame

has sent for you.” Then it wasn’t mamma, it could be no one but father.

This was what she conjectured, as she confessed to us.

We tried to smile at her fears, comparing her to Abbé Heurtevant who

carried thunder about with him and set it off at the least provocation;

but by degrees her fear became ours. We waited feverishly for the

return of the farmer whom we at once questioned. It was Louise who

spoke.

“Father is sick, isn’t he, Stephen?”

“Ah, Miss, it’s a great misfortune.”

“Has he taken the disease?”

“It isn’t the disease that he has taken; it’s a chill and fever.”

Poor Louise burst into tears, calling upon our father as if he could

hear her. We had to comfort her, not without blaming her for giving

way, the farmer himself joining in.

“The young lady is mistaken. Master Michael is strong. There’s many a

one has had chills and fever who is fat and healthy to-day.”

The thought never occurred to me that there could be any real

danger. My self absorption prevented my thinking so. What an absurd

presentiment that poor Louise was torturing herself with! I could see

my father there, before the entrance, just as the carriage started. His

panama, slightly tilted, cast a shadow over half his face. The other,

in full sunlight, was radiant with life. He was giving brief orders

and hastening us into the vehicle because he was waited for at the

mayor’s office. How well he could command, and how every one hastened

to obey him! I was the only one who thought of withdrawing myself from

his power, his ascendency. He held himself upright like an oak in the

forest, one of those tall fine oaks that never shed their leaves till

the new ones come, that the tempest can never shake, that seem to stand

all the straighter and grow tougher by resistance. I could hear his

voice ringing out, his voice saying Forward! as in battle. I could not

admit that that strength could be overcome. I had counted upon that

strength. I must needs count upon it, because later, when I judged

best, and had achieved my liberty I wanted to go back, of my own free

will, and show my father a little love.

Yet I recalled to mind the day when I had heard him utter in mother’s

room a lament over me: “_That child is no longer ours_....”

But I would not dwell on that. No, no, I must exaggerate nothing.

Mother had recalled us because the abating epidemic no longer

threatened danger, and because father, being ill, would be glad to see

us; she had sent for us for these reasons and for none other....

We went down early next morning, Louise and I in the farmer’s cart,

grandfather and the children a little later by the diligence which

after all was more comfortable. I turned around many times to imprint

upon my memory the picture of that valley, where in solitude I had met

so many emotions created by myself, as it were a sort of happiness

in which the others had no part. Seated beside me Louise never spoke

except to lean toward our old Stephen and ask him gently,

“Couldn’t you go a little faster?”

“Yes, Miss, we’ll try. Biquette is a little like me, she’s not very

young.”

He let his whip play around the mare’s flanks, without actually

touching her. As we drew nearer to the town my sister’s anxiety

increased, and at last affected me. She repeated her contagious “I’m

afraid,” and only the fine October sunshine, warming us on our seat,

helped me to repel so absurd a presentiment.

We reached the gate at last. No one was waiting for us. How many times

had I found father at that place, gazing down the road, and as soon

as he saw us hailing us with word and gesture, with all the paternal

gladness of his heart! I looked up at the window. The usual shadow

was not there, behind the curtain, and for the first time I knew that

sorrow threatened us all.

Mother, as soon as she was informed of our arrival, came down to meet

us. Louise threw herself into her arms without a word. By a natural

intuition those kindred souls understood one another. I remained apart,

determined not to understand, refusing to admit even the possibility of

a calamity which would leave me no time to play, at my own convenience,

the drama of the return of the prodigal son. Mother came to me:

“He talks of you most of all,” she said. “In his delirium he was

calling for you.”

I was thunderstruck at this pre-eminence. Why did he talk most of me?

Why was I his chief preoccupation, and--my mind leaping forward, even

while awestricken at the sacrilegious thought,--perhaps his last?

“Mamma,” I cried, “it isn’t possible!”

But I at once regretted the involuntary exclamation. My mother was the

living proof that there was no danger, at least not yet. Of course

I remarked the circles round her eyes and her white cheeks, the

tokens of nights of watching. But though weariness was evident in her

every feature, it was as if it did not exist: one felt a higher will

dominating it, or utilising it so long as might be necessary. And by

a strange phenomenon, there was now in her manner of speaking, and

of treating us, something--I could not say what, but I knew it was

there--something of my father’s authority. Visibly, without knowing

it, she was replacing him. But if there had been any danger she would

have shown her woman’s weakness, she who was so quick to be anxious,

and often about nothing at all, she so prompt to hear the approaching

thunderstorm and light the blessed candle for our safety! I did not

even see the holy light that always when night came down kept watch in

her eyes like the little altar lamp in the sanctuary. No, no, if there

had been any danger she would have asked for our help, and I would have

sustained her with my youthful strength.

“Is what possible?” she replied to my question--thus completely

reassuring me. She made no other reply, as if she hadn’t quite heard,

but quite simply, in a gentle voice which endeavoured not to give pain,

she went on to tell us what had taken place in our long absence.

“He is resting just now. Your Aunt Deen is with him. She has helped me

much in nursing him. I’ll take you to his room presently. You can not

imagine the effort which these last months have required of him. That

is the cause of his illness, after he had overcome the pestilence,

when his task was finished. Until then, I had never been able to get

him to spare himself. Day and night he would be sent for, appealed to,

as if there were no one but he. The whole town waited on his orders,

begged for his help. His commands were the only ones that inspired

confidence, but the demands were more than human strength could endure,

and he did in fact go beyond human strength. They never gave him a

moment’s respite--they thought him stronger than the stones that bear

up the house, but even stones will break under too heavy a burden. One

evening, just six days ago, he came home with a heavy chill. And almost

immediately fever appeared. Oh, if he had not so overtaxed himself!”

She checked herself without completing her thought,--or did she not

follow it out when she added after a moment’s reflection,

“I have notified Stephen, in Rome. Last evening he telegraphed me that

he was setting out. I am glad that his Superior has permitted him to

leave--it is a very long journey: we must give him almost twenty-four

hours. I write every day to Bernard who is so far away. And Mélanie is

praying for us.”

Thus she was gathering the family around its head. I asked,

“Why does not Mélanie come?”

“The Sisters of Charity never go back to their homes.”

“They nurse strangers and may not nurse their father!”

“It is the rule, Francis.”

Since it was the rule she had no recriminations to make; she bowed to

it, accepted it, while I,--as soon as it became the rule, my first

impulse was to rebel. Timorous as she was when he was there, now with

unfaltering presence of mind she was preparing all that would be needed

in case of misfortune, without ever ceasing to bend all her energies to

ward it off. I felt shame for not having shared her anxieties and for

having sought to separate myself from the community of sorrow.

“The fever has diminished,” she went on, going over all the encouraging

symptoms for our sakes and her own. “The first days he was delirious

much of the time. He has been more calm since yesterday. He himself

keeps track of the progress of his disease. I see, but he says nothing

about it. This morning he asked for a priest. Abbé Heurtevant, whom he

cured, came.”

_He himself keeps track of the progress of his disease, and he asked

for a priest_; the poor woman did not connect the two, so natural

did it seem to her to ask the help of God. But I--how could I not

connect them? And for the third time I distinctly felt the danger.

We heard Aunt Deen’s step at the head of the stairs; it was growing

heavy. She called _Valentine_! in a subdued voice and we all

hastened to the staircase.

“Oh, he is doing well,” she explained, “but he is awake, and he always

asks for you if you are not there.”

“You may go with me,” mother said to Louise, then turning to me she

added that she would call me next; it wasn’t well for too many to enter

the room at once, lest our presence should agitate the sufferer.

As soon as we were alone Aunt Deen, who must greatly have held herself

in during her hours of watching, exploded:

“Ah, my boy, if you knew! ‘They’ have killed him--killed him without

mercy! The whole town was infected and had no hope except in him. I

have seen it, I tell you, those people with their dirty pustules all

over their bodies. They would be crying like lost souls, and when your

father entered the hospital they would be silent because he had ordered

it, but they would hold out their arms to him. How many he has cured!

It’s he who saved them all, he and no one else. And the fountains

closed, and the water analysed, and the clothing of the dead burned,

and the lazaretto set up, all sorts of hygienic measures. Indeed, the

very best there are. You should have seen how he commanded everything!

Monsieur Mayor, it’s impossible! ‘It must be done by to-morrow.’ But

for him there wouldn’t be a person in the streets to-day. And now, now,

it’s as much as ever if any one comes to ask how he is! The rumour has

spread that he has caught the typhus,--the last one. They are afraid

and they abandon him--the wretches!”

Thus she pictured the general cowardice and ingratitude. My father

stood out above this disorderly crowd. But Aunt Deen had begun on

another subject.

“Your mother is admirable. She has not gone to bed once since his

illness. And she keeps calm. You have seen how calm she is. For my part

I can’t understand her.”

As she had just left the room above I tried to get at the truth of the

case.

“Well, Aunt, is he--”

But I could not go on, and she caught up my inquiry, the impiety of

which had burned my lips, as if I had spoken against the Holy Ark.

“Oh, no, no, no! God will protect us! What would become of us, my poor

child, what would become of us! A man such as there are not two of in

the world!”

Just then Louise, coming softly down, joined us, all in tears. Father

was expecting me.

At the door of his room I paused, heavy of heart. By that oppression

I saw clearly that he was the essential actor in the inner drama of

my childhood and youth, my short but already so important life. I had

lived by him but I was living in opposition to him. From the day when

I had withdrawn myself from his influence, through all the exaltation

which had transported me and yet left me in a state of uneasiness, I

had felt myself free, but out of my frame. In what condition should

I find him? I was afraid, and that is why I paused for a time before

opening the door. On leaving home, after having seen him cheered by

the whole town, I had carried away with me the picture of my father

leaning against the house, assured victor over the pestilence as long

ago he had been victor over those dreaded mole-crickets, cheerfully

bearing the burden of a city in distress, counting upon the future

as on the past, in a word, immortal,--one to whom in his authority I

could therefore give pain without scruple,--and now, in a second, I

should see him--how? He was there, on the other side of that door,

motionless, laid low, humiliated, no longer leading every one like a

flock, fighting on his own account against the insidious disease that

was consuming him. I felt a sort of terror of this inevitable contrast,

mingled, I have to confess, with a personal horror of the sight of

humiliation.

Well, there was neither humiliation nor contrast. I went in and saw

him. Stretched at full length upon the bed he seemed even taller than

when standing--that was indisputable. His head was lying back upon

the bolster and I was especially struck with the forehead, that broad

forehead luminous with the light that sifted through the curtains. The

unwonted thinness only emphasised the nobility of the features. There

was no trace either of anxiety or fear, and as for suffering, if its

mark was there it had brought with it no inferiority. His eyes were

closed, but at times he opened them wide, almost startlingly. When had

I thus seen them take on the imprint of the things at which he was

gazing? Before Mélanie’s last farewell they used so to fix themselves

upon my sister, upon my sister who was to go away for always, and whom

he would never see again.

His whole attitude, his whole expression was gathering itself together,

or rather was fixing itself in its highest character: he had not ceased

to command. And my first word, my only word, was a consent to his

command.

“Father,” I said, standing beside the bed.

I did not utter the word in the sense of filial piety, but because

his ascendency subjugated me, overawed me. Yes, in this dimly lighted

chamber, heavy with the odour of medicines, suffering and fever,

that complex odour which is as it were the advance herald of death,

I mechanically came back into subordination, as a soldier about to

desert returns to his place in the ranks under the eye of his chief. I

was aware of this change in myself. That mysticism in which I had so

revelled and which isolated me from all the universe, melted away like

clouds before the first rays of dawn. I recognised my dependence, and

all the truth of my childish thoughts when they used to begin by making

the tour of the house, and the antiquity and the justice of the power

still held in those weakening hands, which clasped with pale rigid

fingers a little crucifix which at first I had not observed.

I thought I had spoken aloud, but he could not have heard me, for he

did not turn toward me. I could hear his low voice--that voice that I

remembered so ringing--whispering as if he were, reciting a litany.

“What is he saying?” I asked softly of my mother, who drew near.

“Your names,” she murmured. “Listen!”

Yes, one after another he was naming us all. Those of the three elder

had already passed his lips: he pronounced that of Louise. It was my

turn, but he passed it and named Nicola, then James. The omission

hurt me cruelly, but I had hardly had time to feel it when I heard

my name, last of all, detached and set apart. Suddenly I remembered

Martinod’s odious insinuations as to his preference for one of my

brothers; and I understood that no one of us was the favourite, but

that just because of the anxiety I had given I had been the object of

a special solicitude. The irresistible desire swept over me to reveal

to him, in a word, the change that had suddenly taken place in me.

He used to dwell with such interest and even such respect upon our

vocation--believing that it would be the basis of our whole life--I

had systematically put aside mine, to make sure of my liberty. Now,

with full conviction, I had recovered it. Taking a step forward I said

firmly:

“Father, I am here. It is I. Upon the mountain I reflected. Don’t you

know? I want to be a doctor, like you.”

On the mountain? That was not true, but did not piety command me to

conceal the cause of my change of mind? He did not show the joy that I

expected--perhaps he could no longer show joy over anything. Perhaps

another work, the last, that of detachment, was going on in him. He

lifted to me his almost terrifying eyes.

“Francis,” he repeated.

He tried to raise his hand to lay it upon my head. Though I leaned low

over him he could not do it, and his arm fell back. I kneeled, that

he might do it with less effort. He did not even try, as I had hoped,

but in that low voice in which he had named us one by one, he said

distinctly:

“Your turn has come.”

My mother, who was a little behind, drew near to ask me the same

question that I had asked her:

“What is he saying?”

I made an instinctive movement as if to say that I did not precisely

know--yet I had clearly heard him, and after a moment of hesitation,

the expression ceased to be mysterious to me. I could see in it an

evidence of confidence in the past. My father had not admitted my

treachery, my enfranchisement, he had been sure that I would return to

him; he counted upon me. But in its form as from beyond the tomb the

utterance had a still deeper significance, which completely overcame

me; my father was tendering to my weakness the royal crown of the

family, inviting me to wear it after him, because I should be, at home,

his successor, his heir. I had never thought of that.

Did my mother understand the emotion which bowed and shattered me? She

reminded me that I needed food after my long journey in the cold air,

and went with me to the door.

“Valentine,” murmured the sick man.

“I am not leaving you, dear.” And she turned from me to hurry back to

him.

I did not leave the room, but remained and witnessed a scene which

almost without words, apparently obscure and far away, was only all the

more clear to me.

My father began by saying:

“Listen!” He was looking at no one at the moment; his eyes were fixed

on the ceiling above him. He made no haste to speak, he was gathering

himself together. An indescribable anguish swept over me. I divined

that my presence had shaken him, and that he was collecting his

thoughts as to the future of the family. What he had to say to my

mother was doubtless his last wish on the subject. Had I not a right to

hear, since _my turn had come_?

Perhaps my mother, too, understood. She was at the bedside, leaning

over, and the sheet which hung out against her knee shook slightly. I

am sure I saw it shake--was it the trembling of her knee? And then I

saw nothing except one face.

My father was still silent. I could hear the monotonous moan of the

fountain in the court. Mother urged him tenderly:

“My love, my dear love ...”

His mind was entirely lucid. He had _himself followed the progress

of his disease_, he knew precisely how he was. At her words he

seemed to emerge from the thoughts in which he was plunged; he turned

his head slightly and looked at my mother with his almost awe-inspiring

gaze, which penetrated deeply into her heart.

“Valentine,” he repeated, simply.

“You had something to say to me?”

With infinite gentleness he murmured: “Oh, no, Valentine. I have

nothing to say to you.”

I am sure that he had meant to confide to her the future of the

house, and one gaze had been enough to silence him. That gaze alone

had told him that there was no need. She who was there, close beside

him, was she not his flesh and his heart? All those years together,

day by day, without one difference of opinion, one cloud, had made

them indissolubly one. What could one utterance add to all that? Was

ever greater evidence of love given to wife than that silence, that

confidence, that peace! ...

After those high moments I was overpowered by the human cowardice which

finds a sort of solace in absence from the scene of calamity. I left

the room. Grandfather was getting down from the diligence with Nicola,

already a big girl, growing serious, and Jamie, lighter minded, whose

twelve years were not yet troubled by any presentiment. Grandfather

was anxiously superintending the transportation of his violin case and

his almanacs; his collection of pipes was not to be entrusted to any

hands but his own. Aunt Deen attended in person to the heavy luggage.

Notwithstanding her years and declining strength, she still took upon

herself a servant’s duties. Physical effort alone could relieve her

mind; with her, sorrow expressed itself in increased activity.

Once in the house, grandfather wandered about like a soul in pain. He

hovered around the sick room without venturing to enter. He dared not

ask questions, and in his uncertainty he made his moan to any one whom

he saw:

“I am getting old. I am old.”

They saw one another, but I was not present. It was not necessary

to be present to realise what it must have been, and that the son,

inevitably, supported and comforted the father. If life does not draw

from a religious heart the fervour of a constant upward progress, one

must always remain what one has been. For some the burden, for others

the looking on. And even the approach of death does not change things.

As evening drew on, grandfather, who was dragging himself from room to

room, bemoaning himself, timidly proposed that we should take a walk.

“That’s a good idea,” said Aunt Deen, who understood him. “There are

two or three errands at the chemist’s and the grocer’s.”

He manifested a childish joy at being made useful and I did not refuse

to go with him. After the solitude of the mountain, with its silent

nights, we found a secret pleasure in the lighted streets and the

coming and going of people. The epidemic had been completely checked;

the sanitary measures which had been ordered left not the slightest

danger to be feared. Awakened from its nightmare, the town was giving

itself over to transports of joy the reaction from terror. I had seen

it in its consternation rushing with loud cries to seek salvation in

one man, and I found it now in all the heyday and thoughtlessness of

a festival. The autumn softness floated like a perfume over all. The

shops were lighted up. The pavements were crowded with people and the

cafés overflowed to the very street. The women were in light dresses

which they had not been able to wear all summer, and jaunty in their

fresh costumes transformed the season into a belated spring. After

so much mourning life was sweet, and funerals were relegated to the

background.

I was the son of their saviour. I expected tokens of popular favour,

and behold people avoided us, as I was not slow to see. The sight of

that old man and that youth forced upon them the thought of their

benefactor, and recalled the evil days through which they had passed.

Evidently no one wanted to think of them. We should have liked to talk

over all the troubles, but no one gave us an opportunity.

Finally, some one spoke to us. It was Martinod, Martinod with his

pursed-up mouth and sleek beard who, without giving me time to

shake him off, began to talk of my father admiringly, eloquently,

enthusiastically, awarding him full and entire justice, celebrating his

courage, his organising ability, his medical skill, his marvellous art

of directing men. I had resolved, on seeing him, to turn my back upon

him with contempt, and here I was, full of gratitude, drinking in his

words--forgetting his calumnies, his base manœuvres, his secret plots,

which had so nearly destroyed the unity of our family. I ought to have

been seeking upon his face the mark imprinted by my father’s hand, and

here I was listening to his brazen encomiums. I was still too simple

minded to imagine what he was designing.

Gallus and Merinos, who next met us, were quite ready to descant

upon themselves and the cruel trials from which they had fortunately

emerged. We tried to speak of poor Casenave and the unlucky Galurin,

but they changed the subject by informing us that one of them was

composing a Funeral March and the other a _Danse Macabre_, in

commemoration of the historic typhus. I have never learned that either

was finished.

When we returned home, somewhat cheered up by the change, we met

Mariette at the door, full of indignant wrath. She had served us for

more than twenty years, and never thought of controlling herself in our

presence. The little doctor who had long ago visited me in my attack of

pleurisy had attempted to slip a gold piece into her hand, begging her

to give his name and address to the patients who continued to crowd to

our house, and with an emphatic gesture she had thrown his gold at his

head.

“The wretched creature!” exclaimed Aunt Deen, who had witnessed the

incident from the staircase. “Ah! _they_ are all just alike!”

And I ceased to deny the existence of those who surrounded us, “they,”

and knew that calamity was impending over us.

A little later in the evening, just before the dinner hour, as the bell

rang I went myself to the door, thinking that it might be my brother

Stephen, arriving from Rome, whence he had been recalled the previous

evening. I saw before me in the shadow, for the vestibule lamp but

feebly lighted the doorstep, one of our poor people, old Yes-Yes, with

his ever-nodding head. I knew that he was still alive, though Zeeze

Million had carried her dreams of fortune with her to the grave. Why

did he come on another day than Saturday, the regular day of the poor?

“Wait,” I said. “I’ll go for some money.”

But he caught my arm almost familiarly.

“Yes, yes,” he began, “that’s not it.”

“What then?”

“Yes, yes, he cured me, you understand. So it’s to learn, yes, to learn

how he is.”

Full of gratitude he had come for information. I spoke more gently, as

I replied:

“Always the same, friend.”

“Ah, ah! yes, yes, so much the worse.”

I wondered why he did not go. Did he after all, hope for a little

money? Suddenly, like a stammerer who has succeeded in getting hold of

his words, and makes the most of it, he thrust his face close to mine,

exclaiming:

“He--he--he was a man! Yes, yes.”

And he at once disappeared in the darkness. I gazed into the shadows

which had swallowed him up, and then suddenly closed the door;--but too

late, for it seemed to me that some one had come in, an invisible some

one who took his way up the stairs, through the passage, to the room. I

tried to cry out, but my lips uttered no sound; and I thought to myself

that if I had cried out they would have thought me crazy. I stood there

paralysed, knowing that some one had come into the house before me, and

that I could not drive out him who was there, before me, who would not

go out, who was noiselessly going up the stairs, his actual presence

unsuspected by all but me.

Now I understood the true, the irreparable meaning of what I had

vaguely seen without admitting that I saw it. That poor stammering

creature had said “He was a man,” speaking of my father in the past

tense, speaking of my father as if my father was no longer living. Then

that invisible presence which had come in by the open door was Death.

For the first time it seemed to me an active thing, for the first time

Death seemed to me--there is no other word--_alive_. Until that

moment I had attached no importance to its acts. And in my horror and

impotence, I stood there, my arms hanging helpless at my sides.

Long ago, when we had been in danger of losing the house, I had been

born into the unknown sense of grief; now I was born into the sense of

death. And I felt all the cruelty of the parting, before it had come to

pass.

As in that long ago time, I fled into the garden and threw myself upon

the grass. The night was there before me; the earth was cold and seemed

to repel me. The wind which had risen was wrenching the branches of the

chestnut trees, and they groaned, uttering lamentations. Especially

one of them, the one of the breach in the wall, never ceased moaning,

and I thought to see it fall. I recalled to mind some that I had seen

in the forest of the Alpette after a storm, prone upon the ground, at

such length that the eye was astonished on measuring them from root to

tip. And I recalled, too, that picture in my Bible of the tall cedars

of Lebanon lying on the ground--those that were destined to be used in

building the Temple in Jerusalem.

The beams of the roof seemed to be complaining, like the trees, and

I expected to see the house fall into a heap. What would there be to

wonder at, if the house did fall, since my father was dying?

IV

THE HEIR

SORROWS like these have their own modesty, and I throw a veil over

mine....

I resume my story at the time when we resumed our ordinary life. The

first meal by ourselves consecrated its permanence, after the comings

and goings of relatives and friends were over, with all the confusion

inseparable from a house of mourning. My brother Stephen, who had

hastened from Rome, had gone back to complete his theological studies.

Mélanie was doubtless finding expression for her own grief by more

complete devotion to all the sorrows of the hospital, and Bernard, far

away, had acknowledged the blow by a brief cablegram in which we could

measure his affection. We others, who remained, could now count one

another like the wounded after defeat.

The bell rang and we must go to the dining-room. Grandfather came

in from his walk; he was bent and broken, he leant upon his cane,

bemoaning himself about something, I can not tell what. Something had

gone wrong, he himself could not quite understand.

“Ah!” he sighed, all out of breath. “I thought I should never get back

to the house.”

He spoke as we used to speak when we were little. But had we ever left

off saying The House? I saw him so old and weak and hardly realised

that it was he who used to take me into the woods and on the lake, in

those days when both of us used to sally forth in all tranquillity

for the conquest of liberty. In my transformation, going to the other

extreme, I gazed upon him now with an excessive pity which bordered

upon contempt.

Yes, when the soldiers are on the ramparts the town may question and

discuss, may they not? It questions and discusses the utility of arms

and fortifications, their destruction appearing a slight thing. But

what if there are no soldiers and the enemy is at the gates?

Thus in the old days we could talk of our desires and our dreams, of

the commonwealth of the future, and above all, of our dear liberty. We

could, then, and now we can no more, for there is no one defending us,

and we are face to face with life, with our own destinies. He is no

longer here, grandfather, who used to mount guard on the ramparts for

the whole family.

Aunt Deen was putting finishing touches to the table. She was very old

to impose so much labour upon herself, never stopping to rest from

morning till night.

“Don’t, aunt, it is not your work.”

But she protested and muttered and began to weep aloud.

“You mustn’t prevent my working. I feel it less when I am working.”

Didn’t I know, too, that there was now no one in the kitchen but

Mariette, because things were changed with us? Each of us must do his

part, and Aunt Deen, as usual, began first.

Louise was no longer gay, as she used to be. She came in, leading her

sister Nicola, as if to protect her. Why did I look more lovingly at

their fair hair? Was I already thinking of the new uncertainties of

their future? Jamie, left mostly to himself these latter days, had not

been good, and my mother was reproving him. He probably thought that

she would never think of scolding him, and all astonishment, he obeyed.

And now we must take our seats around the table.

Mother had taken her old place in the middle, and I found in her

manner, in her voice gentle as always, an indescribable new authority,

inexplicable and yet to be felt. She turned to grandfather, who came

next.

“It is for you to take his place,” she said indicating my father’s

chair, opposite to hers.

“Oh, not I!” exclaimed grandfather with agitation. “Valentine, I can’t

take that place. I am nothing now but an old beast.”

She urged, but in vain; nothing would induce him to yield. Then my

mother turned to me with that expression, at once calm and frightened,

which she had worn ever since--since she became a widow.

“It must be you,” she said.

Without a word I seated myself in my father’s place and for a few

moments I found it impossible to speak. Why this emotion for so

simple and natural a thing? So simple and so natural indeed was the

transmission of authority.

I have compared the house to a kingdom, and the succession of heads

of the family to a dynasty. And now this dynasty had come to me. My

mother was exercising the regency, and I was wearing the crown. And

now I learned at the same time its weight and its honour. As before

this I had been born into sorrow and into death, I was now born into

the sense of my responsibility in life. Indeed I do not know whether

I can compare the feeling that took possession of me with any other

emotion. It pierced my heart with that sharp and cruel dart which is

generally attributed to love. And from my wound sprang up, as it were,

a gush of red blood, the sense of exaltation which was to colour all my

life--blood which, far from subtracting from life’s forces, would add

to the eternal defences of our race.

Thus, before I had attained the age of man, I entered, by anticipation,

upon the great struggle which without fail forms a part of every

human existence, the struggle between liberty and acceptance, between

the horror of servitude and the sacrifices which are the price of

permanence. A delightful but dangerous teacher had early revealed to

me the miraculous charm of nature, of that very love and pride with

which we think to bring the earth into subjection, but this too sweet

and enervating charm would never again entirely possess me. My life was

henceforth fixed to an iron ring: it would no longer depend upon my

own fancy. Toward the mirages of happiness I should henceforth reach

out only fettered hands. But these fetters are those which every man

must one day assume, whether he actually mounts a throne or whether his

empire is only over an acre or a name. Like a king I was responsible

for the decadence or the prosperity of the kingdom--The House.

A few days later, since I must begin my medical studies, I also was

obliged to go away, for a time. This parting tore my heart: in the

zeal of my new part, I would fain have believed my presence necessary

to my mother, who must be quite crushed by the loss of him who was her

life. Her calmness, however, surprised me, and also the clearness of

her judgment, and that mysterious new authority that every one felt. At

the time of the funeral Martinod had begged for the honour of making

a speech, reminding all present of my father’s devotion to the public

weal, but she had refused. I could not understand her repelling a

repentant enemy, and would willingly have given a contrary opinion.

But not long afterward we learned that Martinod, hoping to capture the

Mayor’s office, had counted upon thus making use of the dead to regain

his lost popularity. Aunt Deen’s _they_ had not laid aside their

arms. They would never lay them aside. But the hearth-stone had its

watchful guardians, neither to be duped nor lulled to sleep.

But there would be loneliness there, with only Nicola and Jamie.

Grandfather would hardly count, for he was failing from day to day. He

who had always had such horror of enclosures now asked almost every

evening if the doors were locked and bolted. What did he fear? Once,

arousing from a doze, he earnestly called for his father. Aunt Deen

took him up almost roughly:

“You know very well that he has been dead these thirty years!”

To our stupefaction he quickly replied,

“No, no, not him, the other.”

“What other? What do you mean?”

“The one who was there a little while ago,” he said, pointing in the

direction of the consulting room.

Then we understood that there was a confusion of generations in his

brain. He felt that he had lost his support, and very naturally our

father had become his.

Much affected by his confusion of mind, I became more just to him.

Together we had lost the empire of liberty.

The evening before my departure I went to my mothers room. I had

expected to lend her courage for our parting, and behold I was weaker

and more agitated than she.

“I shall come back,” I said positively, “and I shall try to follow

_him_.”

We never spoke of him otherwise, among ourselves.

“Yes,” she replied, “_your turn has come_.”

Then she had heard and understood. And as, my head on her shoulder, I

expressed my sorrow at leaving her in her trouble, she comforted me.

“Listen; we must not be sad.”

Was it she who spoke thus? I raised my head in surprise and looked at

her; her face, ravaged by trials, chiselled by the sorrow of the most

ardent love, was almost colourless. All its expression centred in her

eyes, so gentle, so pure, so limpid. She was changed and aged. And yet

there was in her an indescribable firmness which she imparted to all

around her, no one knew how.

“Don’t be surprised,” she said. “That first night I was so overwhelmed

with despair that I prayed God to take me. I cried unto Him and He

heard me. He sustained me, but in another way. I had not believed

enough. Now I believe as we ought to believe. We are not parted, don’t

you see?--We are going forward to meet again.”

A Book of Hours was lying on the work table beside her. I mechanically

took it up. It opened of itself to a page which she must have read

often.

“Read it aloud,” she said.

It was the prayer of the dying, to be recited during the approach of

death:

“_Leave this world, Christian soul, in the name of God the Father

Almighty who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of

the living God who suffered for thee; in the name of Angels and

Archangels, of Thrones and Dominations; in the name of Principalities

and Powers, of Cherubim and Seraphim; in the name of the Patriarchs

and Prophets, and of the Holy Apostles and Evangelists; in the name

of the Holy Martyrs and Confessors, in the name of the holy Monks and

Solitaries, in the name of the holy Virgins, and of all the Saints of

God. May thy dwelling be this day in peace and thy habitation in the

Holy Places!_ ...”

All heaven assembled to receive the Soul to whom the portals of Life

were opened.

_We are not parted; we are going forward to meet again_; I

understood the meaning of her words.

In the silence that followed my reading, once more I heard the

monotonous lament of the fountain in the court, and I recalled my

father’s confidence when, about to speak, confidence had closed his

lips. What could he have said to my mother which she would not know

from him? She was still living with him. She would finish his work, and

then she would go to join him. It was so simple; and this was why she

was so at peace.

Her calmness communicated itself to Aunt Deen, always at work, and

ever on the lookout for the most humiliating duties, polishing floors

or blacking shoes, as if she would punish herself for having outlived

her nephew. And when mother gently took her to task for her excessive

devotion, she would protest with tears, as if begging a favour.

As at evening one sees the village lights come out, one by one, along

the slopes, so I could see the lights of our house shining out even

beyond our own horizon, to the ends of the world, and even beyond the

world. They were shining for the absent as well as for the present,

for Mélanie at the bedside of the poor, for Stephen at Rome, and for

Bernard, soldier of the outposts in his far distant colony. And they

were shining still higher.

And it seemed to me that the walls whose restrictions I had deplored

during my years of youth, during my mad search for liberty, were

opening of themselves to let me pass out. They no longer kept me

a prisoner. How should they keep me a prisoner? Wherever I might

henceforth go, I should carry with me a bit of earth, a bit of my

earth, as if I had been made of its dust, as God made the first man.

That evening, the eve of my departure, my faith in The House became

faith in The Eternal House where the dead live again in peace....

April, 1908--December, 1912.