And truly I will not be sure that I would not now feel, should I encourage myself, some of the old-time fear which that woman and man inspired in me; they were for some time at the head of the list of my childhood terrors, and for very long they led the procession of visions and bad dreams.

Many gloomy apparitions haunted the first years of my life which otherwise were so uncommonly sweet. I was especially addicted to indulging in sad reflections at nightfall; I had impressions of my career being cut short by an early death. Too carefully sheltered and protected at this period, and yet in some measure forced mentally, I may be likened to a flower that lacks color and vitality because it has been raised in an unwholesome atmosphere. I should have been surrounded by hardy, mischievous, noisy playmates of my own age and sex, but instead of that I played only with gentle little girls. I was always careful and precise in my manners, and my curled hair and sedate bearing gave me the appearance of a little eighteenth century nobleman.



CHAPTER XIX.



After that long fever, the very name of which has a sinister sound, I recall the delight I felt when they allowed me to go out into the air, when I was permitted to go down into our beloved yard. The day chosen for my first airing was a radiantly beautiful and clear morning in April. Seated under the bower of jasmine and honeysuckle I felt as if I were experiencing the enchantment of paradise, of another Eden. Everything was budding and blossoming; without my knowledge, during the time that I was confined to my bed, this wonderful drama of the spring had enacted itself upon the earth. I had not often seen this wonderful and magical renewal which has delighted man through all the ages, and to which only the very aged seem indifferent; it ravished me and I allowed my joy to take possession of me almost to the point of intoxication.—Oh! that pure, warm, soft air; the glorious sunlight and the tender, fresh green of the young plants and the budding trees that already cast a little shade. And in myself there was an unwonted strength that bespoke recovery, and I rejoiced mightily when I breathed in the sweet air and felt the flood of new life.

My brother was a tall fellow of twenty-one who had the freedom of the house and grounds in which to work out any of his fancies. During my convalescence I entertained myself greatly speculating about something he was busy with in the garden, which something I was dying of impatience to see. At the end of the yard, in a lovely nook under an old plum tree, my brother was making a tiny lake; he had dug it out and cemented it like a cistern, and from the country round about he procured stones and quantities of moss with which to make the banks about the lake romantic looking; he also constructed rocky elevations and grottoes out of stones and mosses.

And this work was finished the day that I went out for the first time; they had even put little gold fish into the water, and they turned on the tiny fountain and it played in my honor.

I approached it with ecstasy, and I found that it greatly surpassed in beauty anything that my imagination had been able to conjure up. And when my brother told me it was mine, I felt a joy so intense that it seemed to me it must last forever. Oh! what unexpected joy to possess it for my very own! And what happiness to know that I could enjoy it every single day during the warm and beautiful months that were to come. And the thought of being able to live out of doors again, the prospect of playing in every nook of that lovely garden, as I had done the previous summer, was rapture to me.

I remained at the edge of the pond a long time, looking at it and admiring it unceasingly, and I breathed in the sweet, mild spring air, and warmed myself in the radiant sunlight so long denied to me. The old plum tree above my head, planted so long ago by one of my ancestors, and now almost at the end of its usefulness, spread its lacy curtain of new leaves to the tender blue of the sky, and the tiny fountain in its shade continued its tuneful melody as if it were a little hurdy-gurdy celebrating my return to health.

To-day that old plum tree is dead and its trunk the only thing left of it, and spared out of respect, is covered, like a ruin, with ivy vines.

But the pond, with its grottoes and islets, still remains intact; time has given it the appearance of genuine nature herself. Its greenish stones look old and decayed; the mosses, the delicate little plants brought from the river, and the rushes and wild iris have acclimated themselves, and dragon flies that stray through the town take refuge there—a bit of wild nature has established itself in that little corner and I hope it will never be disturbed.

I am more loyally attached to that spot than to any other, although I have loved many places; in no other one have I found so much peace; there I feel tranquil, there I refresh myself and acquire youth and new life. That little corner is my sacred Mecca, so much indeed is it to me that should any one destroy it I would feel as if some vital thing in my life had lost balance, would feel that I had missed my footing, or almost imagine that it presaged the beginning of my end.

The reverent feeling that I have for the place has been born, I believe, from my sea-faring life, with its long voyages to distant places and its dreary exiles during which I thought and dreamed of it constantly.

There is in particular one little grotto for which I have an especial affection: the memory of it has often, in times of depression and melancholy, during the years of weary exile heartened me.

After the angel Azrael had so cruelly passed our way, after reverses of many sorts, and during that sad term when I was a wanderer on the face of the earth, and my widowed mother and my aunt Claire were left alone in the beloved but deserted home that was almost as silent as a tomb, I experienced many a heartache as I thought of the dear hearthstone and of the things so familiar to my childhood that were doubtless going to ruin through neglect. I felt especially anxious to know if the storms of winter and the hands of time had destroyed the delicate arch of that grotto; and strange as it may seem, if those little moss-covered rocks had fallen in I would have felt that an almost irreparable breach had been made in my own life.

At the side of the pond there is an old gray wall which is an integral part of the corner that I call my Holy Mecca; I think it is the very centre of the sacred place, and I recall the tiniest details of it. I can picture to myself the scarcely visible mosses that grow there, and the gaps made by time, which the spiders now inhabit. Growing up at the back of the wall there is an arbor of ivy and honeysuckles whose shade I sought daily every beautiful summer day for the purpose of studying my lessons. But I lounged there lazily, as a school-boy will, and allowed all my attention to be absorbed by those gray stones with their teeming world of insects. Not only do I love and venerate that old wall as the Moslems love their holiest mosque, but I regard it also as something which actually protects me; as something which conserves my life and prolongs my youth. I would not suffer any one to change it in the least, and should it be demolished I would feel as if the very supports under my life were insecure. May it not be because certain things persist, and are known to us throughout our lives, that we borrow from thence delusions in regard to our own stability and our own continuance. Seeing that they abide we suppose that we cannot change nor cease to be.

Personally I cannot explain these sentiments of mine in any other way than to regard them as some sort of fetich worship.

And when I consider that those stones are very like other stones, that they have been brought from I know not where, by whom I care not, to be built into a wall by workmen who lived and died a century before I was even thought of, I realize the childishness of the illusion, which I indulge in spite of myself, that it can extend any sort of spiritual protection to me; I comprehend only too well what a frail and unstable base has that that symbolizes for me the permanency of life.

Those who have never had a permanent home, but who have from infancy been taken from place to place, living in lodgings meantime, may not be able to appreciate these sentiments.

But among those who have daily gathered about the same hearthstone, there are, I am sure, many who, without confessing it, are susceptible in varying degrees to impressions of this sort. And do not such people often, because of an old stone wall, a garden known and loved since childhood, an old terrace which has become in indestructible part of their memory, or an old tree that has not changed form within their lives, seek a warrant for their own hope of immortality?

And doubtless, alas! before their birth these objects lent the same delusive countenance to others, to those unknown now turned to dust and gone to nothingness, who may not even have been of their blood and race.



CHAPTER XX.



It was about the middle of the summer, after my severe illness, that I went to the Island for a long visit. I was taken there by my brother and my sister, the latter was like a second mother to me. After a sojourn of several weeks with our relatives at St. Pierre Oleron (my good Aunt Claire and her two old unmarried daughters) we went alone, we three, to a fishing village upon the Long-Beach, which at that time was entirely off the line of travel. The Long-Beach is that portion of the Island commanding a view of the ocean over which the west winds blow ceaselessly. Upon this coast, which extends without a curve straight and seemingly limitless, with the majestic sweep of the desert of Sahara, the waves roll and break with a mighty noise. Here there are to be seen many uneven waste spaces; it is a region of sand where stunted trees and dwarfish evergreen oaks shelter themselves behind the dunes. A curious kind of wild flower, a pink and fragrant carnation, blooms there profusely all summer long. Two or three villages, composed of humble little cottages, whitewashed like the bungalows of Algeria, break the loneliness of this region. These homes have planted about them such flowers as can best resist the sea-winds. Dark skinned fishermen and their families, a hardy honest people, still very primitive at the time of which I write, live here; even sea-bathers had not found their way to these shores.

In an old forgotten copy-book where my sister had written down (in a stilted manner) the impressions of that summer I find this description of our lodgings.

"We dwell in the centre of the village, in the square, at the Mayor's house.

"This house has two ells, which are spacious beyond measure.

"Its dazzling whitewashed surfaces sparkle in the sun, its window shutters are fastened with large iron hooks and painted a dark green as is the custom here. The flower bed that is planted in the form of a wreath all around the house grows vigorously in the sand. The day-lilies, one surpassing the other in beauty, open their yellow, pink and red blossoms, and the mignonette beds which at noon-time are fully abloom waft on the air an odor that is sweet as the scent of orange blossoms.

"Opposite us a little path hollowed out of the sand descends rapidly to the edge of the sea."

My first really intimate acquaintance with the sea-wrack, crabs, sea-nettles, jelly-fish, and the thousand and one other small creatures that inhabit the ocean, dates from this visit to the Long-Beach.

And during this same summer I fell in love for the first time—my beloved was a little village girl. But here, so that the story may be related more accurately, I will allow my sister, through the medium of the old copy-book, to speak again—I merely copy:

"Dozens of the children (fishermen's boys and girls), tanned and brown and with little legs all bare, followed Pierre, or audaciously hurried before him, and from time to time turned and looked at him wonderingly with their beautiful dark eyes. At that time a little gentleman was a rare enough spectacle in that part of the country to be worth the trouble of running after.

"Every day Pierre, accompanied by this crowd, would descend to the beach by means of the little footpath scooped out of the sand. There he would run and pick up the shells that, upon that coast, are so exquisitely beautiful. They are yellow, pink, purple and many other bright colors, and they have the most delicate and varied forms. Pierre admired them greatly, and the little ones who always followed him would silently offer him hands full.

"Veronica was the most attentive of all. She was about his own age, perhaps a little younger, six or seven years of age. She had a sweet, dreamy little face, a rather pale complexion and lovely gray eyes. She was protected from the heat by a large white sunbonnet; a kichenote, as they call it in that part of the country, is a very old word, and means a large bonnet made of linen and cardboard, which projects over the face like the head-dress of a nun. Veronica would slip near Pierre, take possession of his hand, and keep it in hers. Thus they walked along contentedly without saying a word. They stopped from time to time to kiss each other. 'I wish to kiss you,' Veronica would say, and as she did so she embraced him tenderly with her little arms. Then after Pierre had allowed her the caress he would, in his turn, kiss her vehemently on her pretty, little, plump cheeks. . . ."

* * * * *

"Little Veronica used to run and seat herself upon our doorstep as soon as she was up; and there she remained like a faithful, loyal spaniel. As soon as Pierre woke he thought of her being there, and he would immediately get out of bed, have himself quickly washed, and stand quietly to have his blond curls combed out, and then run to find his little friend. They embraced each other and prattled of the events of the day before; sometimes Veronica, before coming to our house to wait for Pierre, made a trip to the seashore and gathered an apron full of the beautiful shells as a love offering to her sweetheart.

"One day, at about the end of August, after a long reverie, during which Pierre had perhaps weighed and considered the difficult question of the social difference between them, he said; 'Veronica you and I must get married some day; I will ask permission of my parents when the time comes.'"

Then my sister speaks of our departure:

"Upon the 15th of September it was necessary for us to leave the village. Pierre had made a collection of shells, sea-weeds, star-fish and pebbles; he was insatiable and wished to carry all of them away with him, and with Veronica's aid he packed a great many into his boxes.

"One morning a large carriage arrived at St. Pierre to take us away. The peace of the village was broken by the noise of the little bells and the cracking of the driver's whip. Pierre with the greatest care placed his own packets into the carriage and then we three quickly took our places. With eyes full of sadness Pierre gazed out of the carriage window towards the sandy path that led down to the beach—and at his little friend who stood there weeping."

In conclusion I will copy word for word the reflection found at the end of the faded book which was written down by my sister during that same summer.

"Then, and not for the first time, I fell into an uneasy reverie that had to do with Pierre, and I asked myself: 'What will become of the little boy? And what will become of his little friend whose figure we could still see outlined at the now far distant end of the road. How much despair does that little heart feel; how much anguish at being thus abandoned?'"

"What will become of that boy?" Alas! what indeed! His whole life was to be similar to that summer of his childhood. To know the sorrow of many farewells; to desire to take with me a thousand trifles of no appreciable value, to hunger to have about me a world of beloved souvenirs,—but especially to say good bye to wild little creatures (loved perhaps just because they were ingenuous children of nature),—these things were to make up the sum of my life.

The two or three days' journey home (broken into by a visit to our old aunts) seemed to me very nearly endless. My impatience to see and embrace mamma kept me from sleeping. I had not seen her for almost two months! My sister was the only person in the world who, at that time, could have made such a long separation from my mamma endurable to me.

We reached the continent safely, and after a three-hours ride in the carriage that we found awaiting us at the boat-landing, we passed through the ramparts of our town. Ah! at last I saw my mother; I once more saw her dear face and sweet smile.—And now at this distant time I find that one of my clearest and most persistent memories is her beloved and still youthful face and her beautiful dark hair.

When we arrived at the house I ran to visit my little lake and its grottoes, and I hurried to the arbor that grew against the old wall. But my eyes had become so accustomed to the immensity of the sandy beach and the ocean that all of these things appeared shrunken, diminished, walled-in and mean. The leaves were turning yellow, and although it was still warm there was a promise of early autumn in the air. With fear and dread I thought of the dull and cold days which would soon be upon us; and when, with a heavy heart, I began to unpack my boxes of sea-weed and shells, I was overcome with grief because I was not still upon the Island. I felt disquieted too about Veronica who would have to be there without me during the winter, and suddenly my eyes overflowed with tears at the thought that I might never again hold her dear little sun-burned hands in mine.



CHAPTER XXI.



The time now arrived for me to begin regular lessons and to write exercises in copy-books, which I invariably smeared with ink—ah! what gloom and dreariness suddenly came into my life.

I remember that I performed my tasks spiritlessly and sulkily, and that my lessons bored me inexpressibly. And since I wish to be very sincere, it is necessary for me to add that my teachers also were well-nigh intolerable to me.

Alas! well do I remember the one who first taught me Latin (rosa, the rose; cornu, the horn; tonitru, the thunder). This tutor was very old and bent, and as sad of face as a rainy November day. He is dead now, the poor old fellow—sweet peace to his soul! He was exactly like that "Mr. Ratin" hit off in caricature so neatly by Topffer; he had all the marks, even to the wart with the three hairs, and fine wrinkles beyond number at the end of his old nose; to me his face was the personification of all that was hideous and disgusting.

He arrived every day precisely at noon; and a chill would pass through me when I heard his knock which I would have recognized among a thousand.

Always after his departure, I attempted to purify that part of my table where his elbow had rested by rubbing it hard with the napkin which I had taken clandestinely from the linen-closet. And the repulsion extended itself to the very books, already unattractive enough to me, which he touched; I even tore certain leaves out of them because I suspected that he had handled them a great deal.

My books were always full of ink blots, always stained and covered with smeared sketches and pictures, which one draws idly when his attention wanders from his task. I who was usually so careful and proper a child had such a detestation for the books which I was obliged to learn from, that I abused them in the commonest fashion; altogether I was a miserable pupil. I found—and this is the astonishing part—that all my scruples of conscience deserted me when my teacher questioned me in regard to the time I had spent upon my lessons (I usually studied them in a mad hurry at the last moment); my aversion for study was the first thing that caused me to temporize with my conscience.

In spite, however, of a pricking conscience, I still continued to give only a passing glance at my lessons at the very last moment. But generally "Mr. Ratin" would write "good" or "very good" upon the paper which it was my duty each evening to show to my father.

I believe that if he, or the other professors who succeeded him, could have suspected the truth, could have guessed that out of their presence my mind did not dwell for more than five minutes a day upon what they had taught me, their honest heads would have split with indignation.



CHAPTER XXII.



During the course of the winter which followed my visit to the Long-Beach a great change took place in our family—my brother departed for his first campaign.

He was, as I have said, about fourteen years older than I. I had had very little time to become acquainted with him, to attach myself to him, for his preparation for his vocation made it necessary for him to be away from home a great deal. I scarcely ever went into his room where, scattered upon the table, there was an appalling number of large books. This room was pervaded with the strong odor of tobacco; and I dared not go near it for fear that I would meet his comrades, young officers, or students like himself. I had heard, also, that he was not always well-behaved, that sometimes he did not come in until very late at night, and that often my father had found it necessary to give him a serious talking to; secretly I greatly disapproved of his conduct.

But his approaching departure strengthened my affection, and caused me extreme sorrow.

He was going to Polynesia, to Tahiti, almost to the end of the world, and he expected to be away four years. To me that seemed an almost endless absence, for it represented half of my own age.

I watched, with the greatest interest, the preparations that he made for his voyage. The iron-bound trunks were packed with care. He wrapped the gilt-embroidered uniform and his sword in a quantity of tissue paper, and put them away with the same care one bestows upon a mummy when it is relaid in its metal case. All of these things augmented the impression that I had of the distance and dangers of the long voyage about to be undertaken by my brother.

A sort of melancholy rested upon every one in the house, which became deeper and more and more noticeable as the day for the separation drew near. At our meals we were more silent; advice from my father and assurances from my brother was the substance of most of the conversations, and I listened meditatively without saying a word.

The day before my brother left he confided to my care—and I was greatly honored to have him do so—the many fragile little things that he had upon his mantel-piece; these he bade me guard faithfully until his return.

He then made me a present of a handsome gilt edged, illustrated book entitled, "A Voyage in Polynesia." It was the only book that in my early childhood I had an affection for, and I constantly turned its pages with eager pleasure. In the front of it there was an engraving of a very pretty dark woman who, crowned with reeds, was sitting gracefully under a palm tree. Under this picture was printed: "Portrait of her Majesty, Pomare IV., Queen of Tahiti." Further over in the book there was a picture of two beautiful maidens, with naked shoulders and crowned heads, standing at the edge of the sea, and this was entitled: "Two Young Tahitian Girls upon the Beach."

Upon the day of my brother's departure, at the last hour, the preparations being over, and the large trunks closed and locked, we gathered in the parlor as solemnly as if we had come together for a funeral. A chapter of the Bible was read and then we had family prayers. . . . Four years! and during that time the width of the earth between us and our loved one!

I recall particularly my mother's face during the farewell scene; she was seated in an arm chair beside my brother. After the prayer she had upon her face an infinitely sweet, but wistful smile, and an expression of submissive trust; but suddenly an unexpected change came over her features, and in spite of her efforts at self-control her tears flowed. I had never before seen my mother weep, and it caused me the greatest anguish.

The first few days after his departure I had a feeling of sadness, and I missed him greatly; often and often I went into his room, and the little treasures which he had confided to my care were as sacred as holy relics.

Upon a map of the world I had my parents point out to me the route of his journey, a journey which would take about five months. To me his return belonged to an inconceivable and unreal future; and, most strange of all, what spoiled for me the pleasure of his home-coming, was that I at that time would be twelve or thirteen years of age—almost a big boy in fact.

Unlike most other children,—especially unlike those of to-day—who are eager to become men and women as speedily as possible, I had a terror of growing up, which became more and more accentuated as I grew older. I argued about it to myself, and I wrote about it, and when any one asked me why I had such a feeling I answered, since I could not think of a better reason: "It seems to me that it will be very wearisome to be a man." I believe that it is an extremely singular state of mind, an altogether unique one perhaps, this shrinking away from life at its very beginning; I was not able to see a horizon before me: I could not picture my future to myself as so many can; before me there was nothing but impenetrable darkness, a great leaden curtain shut off my view.



CHAPTER XXIII.



"Cakes, cakes, my good hot cakes!" Thus, in a plaintive voice, sang the old woman peddler who regularly, upon winter evenings, during the first ten or twelve years of my life, passed under our window.—When I think of those bygone days I hear again her insistent refrain.

It is with the memory of Sundays that the song of the "good hot cakes" is most closely associated; for upon that evening, having no duties to perform in the way of lessons, I sat with my parents in the parlor upon the ground floor which overlooked the street; therefore, when almost upon the stroke of nine, the poor old woman passed along the sidewalk, and her sonorous chant broke into the stillness of the frosty night I was near enough to hear her distinctly.

She presaged the coming of cold weather as swallows announce the advent of the spring. After a succession of cool autumnal days, the first time we heard her song we would say: "Well, we may conclude that winter is really here."

This parlor where we sat together seemed a very immense room to me. It was simply and tastefully furnished and arranged: the walls and the woodwork were brown, decorated with strips of gold: the furniture, dating from the time of Louis Philippe, was upholstered in red velvet; the family portraits were in severe black and gold frames; in the centre of the table, in the place of honor, there was a large Bible that had been printed in the sixteenth century. This was a precious heirloom that had come down to us from our Huguenot ancestors who had, at that time, been persecuted for their faith. We had baskets and vases of flowers disposed about the room, a custom which then was not so usual as it is now.

It was always a delicious moment for me when we left the dining-room and went into the parlor, for the latter room had an air of great peace and comfort; and when all the family were seated there in a circle, mother, grandmother and aunts, I began to skip about noisily in their midst from very joy at being surrounded by so many loved ones; and I waited impatiently for them to begin the little games which they were in the habit of playing with me early in the evening. Our neighbors, the D——'s, came to see us every Sunday; it was a time-honored custom in our two families, between whom there existed a friendship that had its inception in the country generations before our time; it was a friendship which had been handed down to us as a precious heritage. At about eight o'clock, when I recognized their ring, I jumped for joy, and I could not restrain myself from running to the street door to meet them, for Lucette, my dear friend, always came with her parents.

Alas! how sad is my reverie when I think of the beloved and venerated forms of those who surrounded me upon those happy Sunday evenings; the majority of them have passed away, and their faces, when I seek to recall them, are dim and misty—some are altogether lost from memory.

Then friends and relatives would begin to play, for the purpose of giving me pleasure, the little games of which I was so fond; they played "Marriage," "My Lady's Toilet," "The Horned Knight," and "The Lovely Shepherdess." Everybody took part in them, even the old people, and my grand aunt Bertha, the eldest of all, was irresistibly droll.

The refrain became louder rapidly, for the singer trotted along with short, quick steps, and very soon she was under our window, where she kept repeating her song in a shrill, cracked voice.

When they would allow me to do so, it was my greatest pleasure to run to the door, followed by an indulgent aunt, not so much for the purpose of buying the cakes, however, for they were coarse and unpalatable, as to stop the old woman and talk with her.

The poor old peddler would approach with a courtesy, proud of being called, and standing with one foot upon the threshold she would present her basket for our inspection. Her neat dress was set off by the white linen sleeves that she always wore. While she uncovered her basket I would look longingly, like a caged wild-bird, far down the cold and deserted streets.

I liked to breathe in great draughts of the icy air, to look hastily into the black night lying beyond the door, and then to run back into the warm and comfortable parlor,—meantime, the monotonous refrain grew fainter and fainter as it died away into the mean streets that lay close to the ramparts and the harbor. The old woman's route was always the same, and my thoughts followed her with a singular interest as long as the song continued.

I felt a great pity for the poor old woman still wandering about in the cold night, while we were snug and warm at home; but mingled with that feeling there was another sentiment so confused and vague that I give it too much importance, even though I touch upon it never so lightly. It was this: I had a sort of restless curiosity to see those squalid streets through which the old peddler went so bravely, and to which I had never been taken. These streets, that I saw from the distance, were deserted in the day time, but there in the evening, from time immemorial, sailors made merry; sometimes the sound of their singing was so loud that we could hear it as we sat in our parlor.

What could be going on there? What was the nature of that fun, the echo of whose din we heard so distinctly? How did they amuse themselves, these sailors, who had but newly come over the sea from distant countries where the sun was always hot? What life was careless and simple and free as theirs!

My emotions lose their force when I endeavor to interpret them, and my words seem very inept. But I know that seeds of trouble, and seeds of hope (to develop how I could not guess) were at about this time planted in my little being. When, with my cakes in my hand, I re-entered the parlor where the family sat talking together quietly, I felt for a quick, almost inappreciable, moment suffocated and imprisoned.

At half-past nine, because of me seldom later, tea was served, and with it we had thin slices of bread, spread with the most delicious butter, and cut with the care one gives to very few things in these days.

Then at about eleven o'clock, after a reading from the Bible and a prayer, we retired.

As I lay in my little white bed I was always more restless Sunday nights than at any other time. Immediately ahead of me there was the prospect of Mr. Ratin whom morning would surely bring, and he was always a most painful sight to me after a respite; also I was full of regret because Sunday was over, always over so quickly!—and I felt a great weariness when I thought of the many lessons it would be necessary for me to prepare before Sunday came again. Sometimes, as I lay there, I would hear the songs the sailors sung as they passed in the distant lands and noble ships; and a sort of dull and indefinite longing took possession of me and I felt as if I would like to be out of doors myself in search of pleasurable and exciting adventure. I hungered to be in the bracing wintry night air, or in one of those foreign lands where the sun beats down with tropical warmth; I yearned to be out and singing like them, as loud as possible, just for the joy of being alive.



CHAPTER XXIV.



"And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth!"

Besides reading the Bible with the family every evening, I read a chapter from it each morning before rising.

My Bible was a very small one, with exceedingly fine print. Pressed between its pages were some flowers that I was very fond of; especially was I of the spray of pink larkspur, which had the power of bringing very distinctly before my mind's eye the stubble fields (gleux) of the Island of Oleron where I had gathered it.

I do not know exactly how to explain the word gleux, but it means the stubble which remains after the grain is harvested, and those fields of short pale yellow stalks that the autumn sun dries and turns a bright golden. In these fields upon the Island, overrun by chirping grasshoppers, late corn-flowers and white and pink larkspur come up, grow very high, and blossom.

And upon winter mornings, before beginning to read, I always looked at the spray of flowers which still retained its delicate color, and there appeared to me a vision of the Island, and I longed for the summer time and for the warm and sunny fields of Oleron.

"And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth!

"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth; and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit."

When I read my Bible for myself, having then my choice of passages, I either selected that grand portion of Genesis wherein the light is separated from the darkness, or the visions and the marvels of Revelation. I was fascinated by its imaginative poetry, so splendid and yet so terrible, which has, in my opinion, never been equalled in any other book of mankind. . . . The beasts with seven heads, the signs in the heavens, the sound of the last trumpet were well-known terrors that haunted and enchanted my imagination.

In a book, a relic of my Huguenot ancestors, printed in the last century, I had seen pictures of these things. It was a "History of the Bible," and the weird pictures illustrating the visions of the Book of Revelation, invariably, had dark backgrounds. My maternal grandmother kept this precious book, which she had brought from the Island, under lock and key in a cupboard in her room; and as it was still my habit to go there at the sad hour of dusk, it was then that I usually asked her to lend me the book, so that I might turn over its leaves as it lay upon her lap. In the dim twilight until it was too dark to see, I gazed at the multitude of winged angels who were flying rapidly under the curtain of blackness which presaged the end of the world. The heavens were darker than the earth, and in the midst of the great cloud masses, there was visible the simple and terrifying triangle that signified Jehovah.



CHAPTER XXV.



Egypt, the Egypt of antiquity, at a later time, exercised a mysterious fascination over me. I recognized a picture of it immediately, without hesitation and astonishment, in an illustrated magazine. I saluted as old acquaintances two gods with hawk heads that were cut in profile upon a stone and placed at each end of a strangely depicted Zodiac, and although I saw the picture for the first time upon an overcast day, there came to me, and of that I am sure, a sudden impression of great heat given out by a pitiless sun.



CHAPTER XXVI.



During the winter following the departure of my brother, I passed many of my leisure hours in his room painting the pictures in the "Voyage to Polynesia" which he had given me. With great care I first colored the flowers and the groups of birds. After that I painted the men. When I came to color the two young Tahitian girls who were standing at the edge of the sea (the illustrator had been inspired to depict them as nymphs) I made them white, all white and pink like a pretty little doll—I thought them very beautiful done so.

It was reserved for me to learn later than their color is different, and their charms quite otherwise.

My ideas of beauty have changed a great deal since that time, and it would have astonished me very much if I had then been told what faces I was to find most charming in the strange course of my later life. But almost all children are under the dominion of some fancy which dies out when they become men and women.

The majority of people, during the period of their innocence and youth, similarly admire the same type; sweet, regular features, and the fresh pink and white tints. Only at a later time does their estimate of what constitutes beauty vary, then it accords with the culture of their spirit, and especially does it follow in the wake of their developing intelligence.



CHAPTER XXVII.



I do not exactly remember at what period I started my museum which absorbed so much of my time. Just above my Aunt Bertha's room there was a tiny garret-chamber that I had taken possession of; the chief charm of the place was the window that opened to the west, and commanded a view of the ramparts and its old trees. The reddish spots in the distance, that broke the uniform green of the meadows, were herds of wandering oxen and cows. I had persuaded my mother to paper this attic room, and she had covered its walls with a pinkish chamois paper which is still there; she also put a what-not and some glass cases there. In these latter I placed my butterflies which I looked upon as rare specimens; I also arranged therein the birds'-nests that I had found in the woods of Limoise; the shells I had gathered upon the shores of the Island, and those others (brought from the colonies at an early time by unknown ancestors) that I had found in the garret at the bottom of old chests where they had lain for years and years, given over to dust and darkness.

I spent many tranquil hours in this retreat contemplating the tropical mother-of-pearl shells, and trying to image to myself the strange coasts from which they had come.

A good old great uncle of mine, who was very fond of me, encouraged me in these diversions. He was a physician, and in his youth he had lived for a long time upon the coast of Africa; he had a collection of natural history specimens almost as valuable and varied as any found in a city museum. His wonderful things captivated me: the rare and exquisite shells, amulets and wooden weapons that still retained their exotic odor, with which I became so surfeited later, and indescribably beautiful butterflies under glass enchanted me.

He lived in our neighborhood and I visited him often. To get to his cabinets, it was necessary to go through his garden where thorn-apples and cacti grew abundantly, and where they kept a gray parrot, brought from Gaboon, whose vocabulary consisted of words learnt from the negroes.

And when my old uncle spoke of Senegal, of Goree, and of Guinea, the music of these names intoxicated me, and conveyed to me vaguely something of the sad languor of the dark continent. My uncle predicted that I would become a great naturalist,—but he was as mistaken as were all those others who foretold my future; indeed he struck farther from the centre than any one else; he did not understand that my liking for natural history was no more than a temporary and erratic excursion of my unformed mind; he could not know that the cold glass and the formal, rigid arrangements of dead science had not power to hold me for long.



CHAPTER XXVIII.



In the meantime, alas! I had to spend many long and wearisome hours in going through the form of studying my lessons.

Topffer, who is the only real poet of school-boys, that genus so misunderstood, divides us into three groups: first, those who are in boarding schools; second, those who do all their studying at home at a window which overlooks a gloomy courtyard containing a twisted old fig tree; third, those who also study at home in a bright little room whose window commands a view of the street.

I belonged to that third class whom Topffer considers extraordinarily privileged, and as likely, in consequence, to grow up into happy men. My room was upon the first floor, and it opened into the street; it had white curtains, and its green paper was embellished with bouquets of white roses. Near the window was my work desk, and above it, upon a book-shelf, was my very much neglected library.

In fine weather I always opened this window, but I kept my venetian blinds half-closed, so that I might look out without having my idleness seen, and reported by a meddlesome neighbor. Morning and evening I glanced to the end of the quiet street that stretched its sunny length between the white country houses and lost itself among the old trees growing beyond the ramparts. I could see from there the occasional passers-by, all well known to me, the neighborhood cats that prowled within doorways or upon house-tops, the swifts darting about in the warm air, and the swallows skimming along the dusty street. . . . Oh! how many hours have I spent at that window feeling like a caged sparrow, my spirit filled with vague reverie; and meantime my ink-blotted copy-book lay open before me, but no inspiration would come, and the composition that I was engaged upon got itself finished very laboriously,—often not at all.

And before long I began to play tricks upon the pedestrians, a fatal result of my idleness over which I often felt remorseful.

I am bound to confess that my great friend Lucette was usually a willing assistant in these pranks. Although now almost a young lady sixteen or seventeen years of age, she was at times almost as much of a child as I. "You must never tell any one!" she would say with an irrepressible smile of mischief in her merry eyes (but I may tell now after so many years have passed, now that the flowers of twenty summers have bloomed upon her grave).

Our pranks consisted of taking cherry stems, plum stones and any sort of trash, and wrapping them neatly into white or pink paper parcels that looked very attractive to the eye; we then threw these bundles into the street and hid ourselves behind the shutters to see who picked them up.

Sometimes we would write letters, impertinent or incoherent ones, with accompanying drawings to illustrate the text; these we addressed to the different eccentric people in our neighborhood, and, with the aid of a thread, we lowered them to the sidewalk at about the same time these persons were in the habit of passing. . . .

Oh! how merrily we laughed as we composed these hodge-podges of style! With no one else have I ever laughed so heartily as with Lucette,—and we usually roared over things that no one except ourselves could possibly have considered funny. Over and above the bond of little brother and grown sister there was between us a sympathy springing from our appreciation of the ridiculous, and our notions of what constituted fun were in complete accord. She was the sprightliest person I ever knew, and sometimes a single word would start us to laughing at our own or our neighbors' expense, until our sides ached and we almost fell upon the floor.

This part of my nature was not, I must confess, in harmony with the gloomy reveries evoked by the pictures of the Book of Revelation, and with my ascetic religious convictions. But I was already full of strange contradictions.

Poor little Lucette or Lucon (Lucon was the masculine for Lucette, and I used to call her "My dear Lucon"); poor little Lucette was also one of my professors, but one who caused me neither fear nor disgust. Like "Mr. Ratin" she also kept a book wherein she would inscribe "good" or "very good," and I showed it to my parents every evening. Until now I have neglected to say that it had been one of her amusements to teach me to play upon the piano; she taught me by stealth so that I might surprise my parents by playing for them, upon the occasion of a family celebration, the "Little Swiss Boy" or the "Rocks of St. Malo." The result was she had been requested to go on with lessons that had had such a favorable beginning, and my musical education was entrusted to her until it came time for me to play the music of Chopin and Liszt.

Painting and music were the only things I worked at industriously and faithfully.

My sister taught me painting; I do not, however, remember when I commenced it, but it must have been very early in my life; it seems to me that there was never a time when I was not able, with my pencil or my brush, to express in some measure the odd fancies of my imaginations.



CHAPTER XXIX.



In my grandmother's room, at the bottom of the cupboard where she kept "The History of the Bible," with the terrible pictures illustrating the visions of Revelation, she had also several other precious relics. In particular there was an old silver-clasped psalm book. It was extremely tiny, like a toy-book, and in its day it must have been a marvel of the printer's skill. It had been made in miniature thus they told me, so that it could be easily hidden; at the time of the persecutions our ancestors had often carried it about with them, concealed in their clothing. There was also, in a paste-board box, a bundle of letters written on parchment and marked Leyden or Amsterdam. Those written between the years 1702 and 1710 were secured by a large wax seal stamped with a count's coronet.

They were letters of our Huguenot ancestors, who, at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, had quitted their country, their home and their dear ones, rather than abjure their faith. The letters had been written to an old grandfather, a man too aged to go the way of the exile, who was able, for some inexplicable reason, to remain unmolested in his retreat upon the Island of Oleron. The letters testified to the fact that the exiles had been submissive and respectful towards him to a degree unknown in our day; the wanderers wrote asking his advice or his consent before undertaking anything,—they even asked whether they might wear a certain wig which was fashionable in Amsterdam at that time. They spoke of their troubles, but without murmuring over them, with a truly Christian resignation; their goods had been confiscated; they were obliged to follow uncongenial trades in order to maintain themselves; and they hoped, they said, with the aid of God always to make enough to keep their children from starving.

Together with the respect that these letters inspired, they had also the charm of age; it was a novel experience to enter into the life of a bygone time, to know the inmost thoughts of those who had lived a century and a half before me. And as I read them I was filled with indignation against the Roman Church and Papal Rome, sovereign during the many past centuries.—Surely it was she who was designated, in my opinion at any rate, in that wonderful prophecy contained in Revelation: "And the beast is a City, and its seven heads are Seven Hills on which the woman sitteth."

My grandmother, always so austere and upright looking in her black clothes, a type of a Huguenot woman, had been fearful for her own safety during the Restoration, and although she never spoke of it, we felt that she must have very depressing memories of that time.

And upon the Island, in the shade of a bit of woodland that was encircled by a wall, I had seen the place where slept those of my ancestors who had been excluded from the cemeteries because they had died in the Protestant faith.

How could I be anything but faithful with such a past? And it is certain that had the Inquisition been revived in my childhood, I would have suffered martyrdom joyfully, like one filled to overflowing with the spirit of God.

My faith was a faith that kept watch upon the theological errors of the time, and I did not know the resignation felt by my ancestors; in spite of my distaste for reading I often plunged into books of religious controversy; I knew by heart the many passages from the Fathers and the decisions of the first councils; I could have discussed the dogmas of the church like a doctor of divinity, and I considered my arguments against the papacy very shrewd.

But notwithstanding my fervor a distaste for all of these religious things would often take possession of me; sometimes at church especially where the gray light fell upon me and chilled me I felt it most. The awful tediousness of some of the Sunday sermons; the emptiness of the prayers, written in advance and spoken with conventional unctuous voice, and gestures to suit; and the apathy of the people who, dressed out in their best, came to listen,—how early I divined its hollowness,—and how deep was my disappointment, and how cruel the disillusionment—oh! the disheartening formalism of it all! The very appearance of the church disconcerted me: it was a new cityfied one, meant to be pretty without, however, meaning to be too much so; I especially recall certain little efforts at wall decoration which I held in the greatest abomination, and shuddered when I looked at. It was that disgust in little which I experienced in so great a degree when later I attended those Paris churches that strive so for elegance, where one is met at the door by ushers whose shoulders are tricked out with knots of ribbon. . . . Oh! for the congregation of Cevennes! Oh! for the preachers of the wilderness!

Such little things as I have mentioned did not shake my faith which seemed as solid as a house built upon a rock; but doubtless they made the first imperceptible crevice through which, drop by drop, oozed the melting ice-cold water.

Where I still knew true meditation, and felt the deep sweet peace one should feel in the house of God was in an old church in the village of St. Pierre Oleron; my great grandfather Samuel had, at the time of the persecutions, worshipped and prayed there, and my mother had also attended it during her girlhood days. . . . I also loved those little country churches to which we sometimes went on Sunday in the summer time: they were generally old and had simple whitewashed walls. They were built any where and every where, in a corner of a wheat field with wild flowers growing all about them; or in more retired places, in the centre of some enclosure at the far end of an avenue of old trees. The Catholics have nothing, in my opinion, which surpasses in religious charm these humble little sanctuaries of our Protestant ancestors—not even do their most exquisite stone chapels hidden away in the depth of the Breton woods, that at a later time I learned to admire so much, touch me so deeply.

I still held fast to my determination to become a minister; it still seemed to me that that was my duty. I had pledged myself, in my prayers I had given my word to God. How could I therefore break my vow?

But when my young mind busied itself with thoughts of the future, more and more veiled from me by an impenetrable darkness, my preference was for a church which should be a little isolated from the noisy world, for one where the faith of my congregation should ever remain simple, for one receiving its consecration from a long past of prayers and sincerest worship.

It would be in the Island of Oleron perhaps!

Yes; there, surrounded upon every side by the memories of my Huguenot ancestors, I could look forward without dread, indeed with much contentment, to a life dedicated to the service of the Lord.



CHAPTER XXX.



My brother had arrived at the Delightful Island. His first letter dated from there was a very long one, it was written on thin paper that had been stained a light yellow by the sea, for it had been upon its way four months.

It was a great event in our family, and I still recall that as my father and mother broke its seal, I sprang joyously up the stairs, two steps at a time, in my haste to reach the second floor and call my grandmother and aunts from their rooms.

Inside the plump-feeling envelope, which was covered over with South American stamps, there was a note for me, and enclosed in this I found a pressed flower, a sort of five-petalled star which, though somewhat faded, was still pink. The flower, my brother wrote, was from a shrub that had taken root and blossomed beside his window, almost within his Tahitian hut, which was actually invaded by the luxuriant vegetation of the region. Oh! with what deep emotion;—with what avidity, if I may express it thus, did I gaze at and touch the periwinkle which was almost a fresh and living part of that unknown and distant land, of that voluptuous nature.

Then I pressed it again with so much care that I possess it intact to this day.

And after many years, when I made a pilgrimage to the humble dwelling in which my brother lived during his stay in Tahiti, I saw that the shady garden surrounding it was rosy with these periwinkles; they had even pushed their way over the threshold of the door to blossom within the deserted cabin.



CHAPTER XXXI.



After my ninth birthday my parents, for a time, spoke of putting me into boarding-school, so that I might become habituated to the harder ways of life, and since the matter was talked over by all the members of the family, I went about for several days feeling as if I were on the eve of being sent to prison, for I imagined that a boarding-school had high walls and windows guarded by iron bars.

But, upon reflection, they considered that I was too frail and delicate a human plant to be thrown in contact with those others of my kind who, in all probability, would play roughly, and have bad manners; they concluded, therefore, to keep me at home a little longer.

At any rate I was delivered from "Mr. Ratin." The old professor, rotund of figure and kind of manner, who succeeded him, was less distasteful to me, but I made just as little progress under his care. In the afternoon, at about the time for his arrival, I would hastily begin to prepare my lessons. I was then usually to be found at my window, hidden behind the venetian blinds, with my book open at the page containing the lesson; and when I saw him come into view at the turning near the bottom of the street I commenced to study it.

And generally by the time he arrived I knew enough to receive, if not to merit, a "pretty good," a mark over which I did not grumble.

I had also my English professor who came to me every morning,—and whom I nicknamed Aristogiton (I do not now recall why). Following the Robertson method, he had me paraphrase the history of Sultan Mahmoud. Outside of that, the only thing that I am sure of is that I accomplished nothing, absolutely nothing, less than nothing; but he had the good taste not to growl at me, and in consequence I have an almost affectionate remembrance of him.

During the extreme heat of the summer days it was my custom to study in the yard; I took my ink-stained copy and lesson books and spread them upon a table that stood in the summer house made shady by the vines and honeysuckles that grew over it. And when I was nicely settled there I felt that I might idle to my heart's content. From behind the lattice-work, green with trellised vines, I kept a lookout in order to see any danger that threatened in the distance. . . . I was always careful to bring with me to this retreat a quantity of cherries and grapes, whichever happened to be in season, and truly I could have passed there hours of the most delicious reverie but for the remorse that tormented me almost every moment, a remorse born of the fact that I was not busying myself with my lessons.

Through the foliage I saw, close to me, the cool-looking pond with its tiny grottoes which, since my brother's departure, I almost worshipped. The little fountain in the centre stirred the waters and made the sunlight that fell on its surface dance joyously; and the sun's rays pierced the green verdure surrounding me—I seemed to be in the midst of luminous water that quivered all about me with a ceaseless motion.

My arbor was a shady little retreat that gave me a complete illusion of country; from the far side of the old wall came the song of the tropical birds belonging to Antoinette's mother, and I heard the rollicking warble and twitter of the swallows perched on the house-top, and the chirp of the common sparrows as they flew about among the trees in the garden.

Sometimes I would throw myself face-upward full length upon the green bench that was there, and through the tasselled honeysuckle I had a view of the white clouds as they sailed across the blue of the sky. There, too, I was initiated into the habits of the mosquitos who all day long poised themselves tremblingly, by means of their long legs, upon the leaves. And often I concentrated all my attention upon the old wall where the insects acted out their tragical drama: the cunning spider would come suddenly from his nook and ensnare in his web the heedless little insects,—with the aid of a straw, I was usually able to deliver them from their peril.

I have forgotten to mention that I had, for companion, an old cat called Suprematie, who had been my faithful and beloved friend since infancy.

Suprematie knew at what hour he would find me there, and he used to slip in quietly upon the tips of his velvet paws; he never stretched himself beside me without first looking at me questioningly.

The poor creature was very homely; he was marked queerly upon only one side of his body; moreover, in a cruel accident he had twisted his tail, and it hung down at a right angle. He was the subject of Lucette's continual mockery, for she had a lovely Angora cat that had usurped Suprematie's place in her affections. It was my habit to run out to see her when she came to inquire after the members of my family; she rarely failed to add, with a funny air of concern, which made me burst out laughing in spite of myself: "And your horror of a cat, is he in good health, my dear?"



CHAPTER XXXII.



During all this time my museum made great progress, and it soon became necessary for me to have some new shelves put up.

My great uncle continued to take a very deep interest in my taste for natural history, and among his shells he found a number of duplicates, and these he presented to me. With indefatigable patience he taught me the scientific classifications of Cuvier, Linne, Lamarck or Bruguieres, and I was astonished at the attention with which I listened to him.

In a very old little desk, that was a part of the furniture of my museum, I had a copy-book into which I copied, from uncle's notes, and numbered with the greatest care, the name of the species, genus, family and class of each shell,—also the place of its origin. And there by the dim light that fell upon the desk, in the silence of that little retreat so high above the street, surrounded with objects what had come from distant corners of the earth and from the depths of the sea, when my mind wandered, and I became fatigued because of the mysterious differences in the forms of animals, and because of the infinite variety of shells, with what emotion I wrote down in my book, opposite the name of a Spirifer or a Terebratula, such enchanting words as these: "Eastern coast of Africa," "coast of Guinea," "Indian Ocean."

I recall that in this same museum I experienced, one afternoon in March, a peculiar feeling indicative of my tendency towards reaction, that later, at certain periods of self-abandonment, caused me to seek the rough and uncouth society of sailors, and made me revel in noise and change and gayety.

It was Mardi-Gras time. At sundown I had gone out with my father to see the masqueraders who were in the streets; and having returned rather early I went immediately to my attic-room to classify some shells. But the noise of the revellers and the clashing of their tambourines reached even to the retreat where I was occupying myself with scientific matters, and the sounds awakened in me a feeling of inexpressible sadness. It was the same emotion, greatly intensified, that I had when I listened, of winter evenings, to the old cake vendor, and heard her voice die away into those far-off squalid streets near the harbor. I experienced an unexpected anguish very difficult to define in words. I had a vague impression, which was the cause of my suffering, that I was imprisoned; and for the moment, I thought that my liking for dry classifications and nature study shut me away from the little boys of every age who were in the streets below mingling with the sailors, more childish than they, who tricked out in dreadful masks ran and frollicked and sang coarse songs. It goes without saying that I had no desire to be one of them; the very idea of jostling against them filled me with distaste, and I disdained their rude sport. And I sincerely felt that it was better for me to be where I was, occupied with putting the many-colored family of the Purpura and the twenty-three varieties of the Gastropoda in order.

But nevertheless the gay and merry people in the street troubled me strangely. And, as was usual with me when I felt distressed, I went down to look for my mother for the purpose of begging her to come up to keep me company. Astonished at my request (for I scarcely ever asked any one into my den), astonished especially by my anxious manner, she said with an air of pleasantry that it was silly for a boy of ten to be afraid to stay alone; but she consented to return with me, and when there she seated herself close to me and occupied herself with a piece of embroidery. Oh! how reassuring was her sweet and darling presence! I returned to my task without concerning myself further about the noise of the maskers, and as I worked I glanced up now and again to look at her beautiful profile cut in silhouette, because of the darkness without, upon my tiny window pane.



CHAPTER XXXIII.



I am surprised that I cannot recall whether my desire to become a minister transformed itself into a wish to lead the more militant life of missionary, by a slow process or suddenly.

It seems to me that the change must have come at a very early period. For a long time I had taken an interest in Protestant missions, especially in those established in Southern Africa, among the Bassoutos. During my childhood we subscribed for the "Messenger," a monthly journal that had for frontispiece an interesting picture which, very early in my life, made a forcible impression upon me.

This picture held a higher place in my regard than those of which I have already spoken, but by no means because of its execution, its color or background. It represented an impossible pine tree growing at the edge of a sea, behind which a resplendent sun was setting, and, at the foot of the tree, there was a young savage who was watching the approach of a ship, from a distant point upon the horizon, that was bringing to him the glad tidings of Salvation.

Early in my life, when from the warm depths of my soft and downy nest, I looked out upon a yet formless world, that picture evoked many dreams; later when I was more capable of appreciating the extreme crudity of the design, that huge sun, half-engulfed in the sea, and that tiny mission boat sailing towards the unknown shores still had a very great charm for me.

Now when they questioned me I replied: "I expect to be a missionary." But I spoke in a low voice, in the voice of one not sure of himself, and I felt that they no longer believed in my asseverations. Even my mother, when she heard my response, smiled sadly.

Doubtless my answer exceeded what she expected from my faith;—probably she said to herself that it was never to be; no doubt she thought that I would become something very different, in all probability something less desirable, that it was impossible at this time to foresee.

This determination of mine to become a missionary seemed to solve my every problem. It would mean long voyages and an adventurous, perilous life,—but journeys would be undertaken in the service of the Lord, and the dangers endured for His blessed cause. That solution brought me great tranquillity for a long time.

After having thus won peace for my religious conscience, I feared to dwell upon the thought lest it should disclose some unexpected weaknesses. But still the chill waters of commonplace sermons, with their endless repetitions and stock phrases, continued to flow over and wash away my early faith. My shrinking from life increased rather than diminished. There seemed to hang between me and the years to come a great curtain whose heavy folds it was impossible for me to lift.



CHAPTER XXXIV.



In preceding chapters I have not said much about that Limoise which was the scene of my initiation into nature and its wonders. My entire childhood is intimately connected with that little corner of the world, with its ancient forests of oak trees, and its rocky moorlands covered here and there with a carpet of wild thyme and heather.

For ten or twelve glorious summers I went there to spend my Thursday holidays, and I dreamed of it during the dreary intervening days of study.

In May our friends the D——-s and Lucette went to their country home and remained until vintage time, usually until after the first October frost,—and regularly every Wednesday evening I was taken there.

Nothing in my estimation was so delightful as that journey to Limoise. We scarcely ever went in a carriage, for it was not more than three and a half miles distant; to me, however, it seemed very far, almost lost in the woods. It lay toward the south, in the direction of those distant, sunny lands I loved to think of. (I would have found it less charming had it been towards the north.)

Every Wednesday evening, at sunset, the hour therefore varying with the month, I left home accompanied by Lucette's elder brother, a grown boy of eighteen or twenty, who seemed to me a man of mature age. As far as I was able I tried to keep pace with him, and, in consequence, I was obliged to go more rapidly than when I walked with my father and sister; we went through the quiet streets lying near the ramparts, and passed the sailors' old barracks, the sounds of whose bugles and drums reached as far as my attic museum when the south wind blew; then we passed through the fortifications by the most ancient of its gray gates,—a gate almost abandoned, and used now principally by peasants with flocks of sheep and droves of cattle,—and finally we arrived at the road that led to the river.

A mile and a half of straight road stretched before us, and this path lay between stunted old trees yellow with lichens whose branches were blown to the left by the force of the sea-winds that almost constantly came from the west, sweeping over the broad and level meadows that lay between us and the ocean.

To those who have a conventionalized idea of country beauty, and to whom a charming landscape means a river winding its way between poplars, or a mountain crowned by an old castle, this level road would look very ugly.

But I found it exquisite in spite of its straight lines. Upon the left there was nothing to be seen but grassy meadow land over which herds of cattle strayed. And before us, in the distance, something that resembled a line of ramparts shut in the plains sadly: it was the edge of a rocky plateau at whose base flowed the river. The far bank of this river was higher than the side that we were on, and was, in some respects, of a different character, but for the most part it was as flat and monotonous. And it is just this sameness that has so much charm for me, an attraction appreciated seemingly by few others. The great level plains with their calm and tranquil straight lines are deeply and profoundly inspiring.

There is nothing in our vicinity that I love any better than the old road; perhaps I have an affection for it because during my school-boy days I built so many castles-in-Spain upon those flat plains where, from time to time, I find them again. It is one of the few spots that has not been disfigured by factories, docks and railways. It seems a spot that belongs peculiarly to me, and certainly no one has the power to contest my spiritual right to it.

The sum of the charm of the sensuous world dwells in us, is an emanation from ourselves; it is we who diffuse it, each person for himself according to his power, and we have it back again in the measure of our out-giving. But I did not comprehend early enough the deep meaning of this well-known truth. . . . During my childhood and youth the charm seemed to reside in the thing itself, to have its habitation in the old walls and the honeysuckle of my garden; I thought it lay along the sandy shores of the Island and upon the grassy meadows and rocky moorland about me. Later on, in pouring out my admiration every where, as I did, I drew too heavily upon the well-spring—I exhausted it at the source. And, alas! I find the land of my childhood, to which I will no doubt return to die, changed and shrunken, and only for a moment, in certain spots, am I able to recreate the illusions I have lost;—there I am for the most part weighed down by the crushing memories of bygone days. . . .

As I was saying before my digression, every Wednesday evening I walked with a light and joyous step along the road that led towards those distant rocks lying at the boundary of the plains, I went gayly towards that region of oak trees and mossy stones in which Limoise was situated,—my imagination greatly magnified it in those days.

The river we had to cross was at the end of the straight avenue of lichened trees so harried by the west winds. The river was very changeable, being subject to the tides and to all the moods of the neighboring ocean. We crossed in a ferry-boat or a yawl, always having for our oarsmen old sailors with bleached beards and sunburnt faces whom we had known from earliest childhood.

When we reached the other bank, the rocky one, I always had a curious optical illusion: it seemed to me that the town from which we had come, and whose gray ramparts we still could see, suddenly drew very far away from us, for in my young head distances exaggerated themselves strangely. Upon this side all was different, the soil, the grass, the wild flowers and even the butterflies that hovered over them; nothing here was like those approaches to our town in whose fens and meadows I took my daily walk. And the differences, which perhaps others would not have noticed, thrilled and charmed me, for it had been my habit to spend, perhaps to waste, my time in observing the infinitesimally small things in nature, and I had often lost myself in contemplation of the lowliest mosses. Even the twilights of these Wednesday evenings had about them something distinctive and peculiar which I cannot express; generally we reached the far shore just as the sun was setting, and we watched it, from the height of the lonely plateau, disappear behind the tall meadow-grass through which we had but newly come, and as it sunk its great ruddy dish seemed uncommonly large.

After crossing the river we turned off the high-road and took an unfrequented way that led through a region called "Chaumes," a very beautiful place at that time but horribly profaned to-day.

"Chaumes" lay at the entrance of a village whose ancient church we saw in the distance. As it was public property it had kept intact its native wildness. This "Chaumes" was a sort of table-land composed of a single stone, and this rock, which undulated slightly, was covered with a carpet of short, dry fragrant plants that snapped under our feet; and a whole world of tiny gayly-colored butterflies and tinier moths fluttered among the rare and delicate flowers growing there.

Sometimes we passed a flock of sheep guarded by a shepherd much more countrified looking and tanned than those seen in the meadows about our town. Lonely and sun-scorched, Chaumes seemed to me the very threshold of Limoise: it had its very odor, the mingled scent of wild thyme and sweet marjoram.

At the end of the rocky moor was the hamlet of Frelin. I love this name of Frelin, for I think of it as being derived from those large and fierce hornets (frelons) that build their nests in the heart of a certain species of oak tree found in the forests of Limoise; to get rid of these pests it is necessary, in the springtime, to build great fires around the infested trees. This hamlet was composed of three or four cottages. They were all low, as is the custom of our country, and they were old, very old and gray; above the little rounded doorways were half-effaced ornamental Gothic scrolls and blazonments. I scarcely ever saw them except at dusk, as twilight was falling, and the hour and the quaint little houses themselves awoke in me an appreciation of the mystery of their past; above all these humble dwellings attested to the antiquity of this rocky ground, so much older than the meadows of our town which had been won from the sea, and where nothing that dates before the time to Louis XIV is to be found.

As soon as we left Frelin I commenced to look eagerly along the path ahead of me, for after that we usually spied Lucette, either afoot or in a carriage, coming to meet us. As soon as I caught a glimpse of her I would run ahead to embrace her.

On our way through the village we passed the tiny church, a wonder of the twelfth century, built in the rarest and most ancient Romanesque style;—and then as the shadows of evening deepened we saw, in the semi-darkness before us, something that had the form of tall dark legions: it was the forest of Limoise, composed almost wholly of evergreen oaks, whose foliage is very dark and sombre. We then came into the road leading directly to the house; on our way we passed the well where the patient, thirsty cattle awaited their turn to drink. And finally we opened the little old gate, and traversed the first grassy courtyard which the shadowing trees, a century old, plunged into almost total darkness.

The house lay between this courtyard and a large uncultivated garden that extended to the edge of the oak forest. As we entered the ancient dwelling, with its whitewashed walls and old-fashioned wainscoting, I always looked eagerly for my butterfly-net that was usually to be found hanging in the place where I had left it, ready for the next day's chase.

After dinner it was our custom to go to the foot of the garden, and there we sat in an arbor that was built against the old wall encircling the yard,—this bower faced away from the unfriendly darkness of the woods where the owls hooted. And while we were seated in the beautiful, mild, star-bespangled night, suddenly upon the air, musical with the chirping of myriad crickets, there was heard the tolling of a bell,—heard very clearly by us although it came from afar off,—it was the church bell in the village announcing the evening service.

Oh! the vesper bell of Enchillais heard in that beautiful garden long ago! Oh! the sound of that bell, a little cracked but still silvery, like the once beautiful voices of very old people which still retain something of their sweetness. What charm of past times, and half sad meditations of peaceful death, were awakened by that music which spread itself into the limpid darkness of the surrounding country! And we heard the bell chiming for a long time, but its sound reached us fitfully; one while it seemed to be near, and then again it seemed far away, as it obeyed the will of the soft night wind that was stirring. I bethought me of all those who, on their lonely farms, were listening to it; I bethought me, too, of all the unpeopled places round about where it would be heard by no one, and a shudder passed through me at the thought of the near-by forest, where the sweet vibrations of the bell would die.

The municipal council, composed of very superior spirits, after having first put its everlasting tri-colored flag upon the steeple of the little Roman Catholic Church, then suppressed its vesper bell. Its day is done; and we shall never again, upon summer evenings, hear that call to prayers.

Going to bed there was always a very enlivening proceeding, especially when there was the prospect of a whole Thursday of play before me. I would, I am sure, have been very much afraid in the guest chamber, which was on the ground floor of the great, isolated house; but until my twelfth year I slept on the floor above, in the spacious room occupied by Lucette's mother;—with the aid of screens they had made for me a little room of my own. In this retreat there was a book-case with glass doors that belonged to the time of Louis XIV; this was filled with treatises, a century old, upon navigation, and with sailors' log-books that had not been opened for a hundred years. Tiny, scarce visible butterflies, that entered by the open windows, were to be found here all summer long, sleeping with extended wings upon the whitewashed walls. And often the most exciting incident of the day happened just as I was falling asleep; sometimes then an unwelcome bat found his way into the room and circled wildly about the lighted candles; or an enormous moth buzzed in and we would chase him with a cobweb-broom. Or again a storm descended upon us and the great trees lashed their branches against the house, and the old shutters slammed back and forth, and we waked with a start.



CHAPTER XXXV.



Now comes the apparition of another little friend who stood very high in my childish favor. As nearly as I can remember I became acquainted with her when I was eleven; Antoinette had left the country; Veronica was forgotten.

Her name was Jeanne, and she was the youngest member of a naval officer's family, that like the D——-s had been bound up in friendship with ours for more than a century. As she was two or three years younger than I, I had at first taken but little notice of her—probably I thought her too babyish.

Her face was as droll as a little kitten's, and it was impossible to tell from the pinched up features whether she would become pretty or ugly; but she had a certain grace, and when she was eight or nine years old her face became very sweet and charming. She was very roguish, and as friendly as I was diffident; and as she darted about in those childish dances we sometimes had in the evenings, and from which I held myself aloof, she seemed to me the extreme of worldly elegance and coquetry.

But in spite of the great intimacy between our families, it was evident that her parents looked upon our friendship with disfavor, they probably thought it unseemly that she had chosen a boy for her companion. This knowledge caused me much suffering, and the impressions of my childhood were so vivid and persistent that I did not, until many years had passed, until I became quite a grown youth, pardon her father and mother the humiliation they had caused me.

It therefore resulted that my desire to play with her increased greatly. And she, knowing this, was as perverse as a princess in a fairy tale; she laughed mercilessly at my timid ways, at my awkward manners and my ungraceful fashion of entering the parlor; there was kept up between us a constant interchange of playful raillery, an oral stream of inimitable pleasantry.

When I was invited to spend the day with her the prospect gave me the greatest joy, but the aftertaste of the visit was generally bitter, for usually I committed some mortifying blunder in that family where I felt myself so misunderstood. Every time I wished to have Jeanne at my house for dinner it was necessary for my aunt Bertha, who was a person of authority in the eyes of Jeanne's parents, to arrange the matter for me.

Upon one occasion when little Jeanne returned from Paris she related to me the story of the "Donkey's Skin," which she had seen acted at the theatre in the city.

Her time so spent was not lost, for the "Donkey's Skin" was destined to occupy a prominent place in my life during the next four or five years, the hours that I wasted upon it were more preciously squandered than were any others in my life.

Together we conceived the idea of mounting the piece upon the stage of my miniature theatre. That play of the "Donkey's Skin" brought us together very often. And little by little the project assumed gigantic proportions; it grew as the months sped, and amused us in ever increasing measure; indeed, in proportion to the degree of perfection to which we were able to bring our conception did we enjoy it. We manufactured fantastic decorations; we dressed, so that they might take part in the processions, innumerable little dolls. It will be necessary for me to speak often of that fairy spectacle which was one of the important things of my childhood.

And even after Jeanne tired of it I worked over it alone, and I fairly outdid myself by undertaking enterprises that seemed grand to me, such, for instance, as my efforts to represent moonlight, great conflagrations and storms. I also made marvellous palaces and gardens wonderful as Aladdin's. All my dreams of enchanted regions, of strange tropical luxuries, which I later found in the distant corners of the world, took form in the little play of the "Donkey's Skin." Leaving out the mystical experiences at the commencement of my life, I can affirm that almost all my fancies had their essay on that tiny stage. I was nearly fifteen when the last decorations, unfinished ones, were laid away forever in the cardboard box that served them for a peaceful tomb.

And since I have anticipated their future I will say in conclusion that in later years, when Jeanne had grown into a beautiful woman, upon numerous occasions we have planned to open the box where our little dolls are sleeping. But we live our life so rapidly that we seem never to find the time, nor will we, I fear, ever find it.

Later our children may,—or who can tell, perhaps our grandchildren! Upon some future day, when we are forgotten, our unknown descendants in ferreting to the bottom of old cupboards will be astonished to find there numberless little creatures, nymphs, fairies and genii, all dressed by our hands.



CHAPTER XXXVI.



It is said that many children who live in the central provinces, away from the ocean, have a great longing to see it. I who had never been away from the monotonous country surrounding us looked forward eagerly to seeing the mountains.

I tried to imagine them; I had seen pictures of several, and I had even painted them for the "Donkey's Skin." My sister, when she visited Lake Lucerne, sent me a description of the mountains, and wrote me long letters about them, such as are seldom addressed to a child of my age. And my ideas were further extended by some photographs of glaciers that my sister brought me for my magic-lantern. I desired with all my heart to see the mountains themselves.

One day, as if in answer to my wish, there came a letter that created quite a stir in our house. It was from a first cousin of my father, who had at one time regarded my father with a brotherly love, but for thirty years, for some reason unknown to me, this cousin had not written or given any sign of life.

At the time of my birth, all talk of him had ceased in our family, and I was ignorant of his existence. And now he wrote and begged that the old bond might be renewed; he was living, he said, in a little southern village in the heart of the Swiss Mountains. He announced that he had two sons and a daughter about the age of my brother and sister. His letter was very affectionate, and my father responded to it in like manner and told his cousin all about us, his three children.

The correspondence having continued, it was arranged that I should spend my next vacation with my relatives; my sister was to take me there and play the part of mother as she had done during our visit to the Island.

The south, the mountains, this sudden extension of my horizon, the cousins who seemed literally to have fallen from the sky, became the subject of my constant reveries until the month of August, the time set for our departure.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

Little Jeanne had come over to spend the day at our house; it was at the end of May during that spring in which my expectations were so great—I was twelve years old at the time. All the afternoon we rehearsed with our tiny jointed china dolls, and painted scenery, we had in fact been busy with the "Donkey's Skin,"—but with a revised and grand version of it, and we had about us a great confusion of paints, brushes, pieces of cardboard, gilt paper and bits of gauze. When it came time for us to go down into the dining-room we stored our precious work away in a large box that was consecrated to it from that day forth—the box was a new one made of pine, and it had a penetrating, resinous odor.

After our dinner, at dusk, we were taken out for a walk. But, to my surprise and sorrow, we found it chilly and the sky was overcast, and every where there was a sort of mist that recalled winter to my mind. Instead of going beyond the town, to the places usually frequented by pedestrians, we went towards the Marine Garden, a much prettier and more suitable walk, but one usually deserted after sunset.

We went down the long straight street without meeting any one; as we drew near the "Chapel of the Orphans" we heard those within chanting a psalm. When that was finished a procession of little girls filed out. They were dressed in white, and they looked very cold in their spring muslins. After making a circuit of the lonely quarter, chanting meanwhile a melancholy hymn, they noiselessly re-entered the chapel. There was no one in the street to see them save ourselves, and the thought came to me that neither was there any one in the gray heavens above to see them; the overcast sky seemed as lonely as the solitary street. That little band of orphaned children intensified my feeling of sorrow and added to the disenchantment of the May night, and I had a consciousness of the vanity of prayer, of the emptiness of all things.

In the Marine Garden my sadness increased. It was extremely cold, and we shivered in our light spring wraps. There was not a single promenader to be seen. The large chestnut trees all abloom and the foliage, in the glory of its tender hue, formed a feathery green and white avenue—emptiness was here too; all of this intertwined magnificence of branch and flower, seen of no one, unfolded itself to the indifferent sky that stretched above it cold and gray. And in the long flower beds there was a profusion of roses, peonies and lilies that seemed also to have mistaken the season, for they appeared to shiver, as we did, in the chill twilight.

I have found that the melancholy one sometimes feels in the springtime usually transcends that felt in autumn, for the reason, doubtless, that the former is so out of harmony with the promise of the season.

The demoralized state into which I was thrown by everything about me gave me a longing to play a boyish trick upon Jeanne. There came to me a desire (one that I frequently felt) to have some sort of revenge upon her, because her disposition was so much more mature and yet more sprightly than mine. I induced her to lean over and smell the lovely lilies, and while she was doing so I, by giving her head a very slight push, buried her nose deep in the flowers and it became covered with yellow pollen. She was indignant! And the thought that I had acted so rudely tended to make the walk home a very painful one.

The beautiful evenings of May! Had I not cherished memories of those of preceding years, or had they in truth been like this one? Like this one in the cold and lonely garden? Had they ended so miserably as did this play-day with Jeanne? With a feeling of mortal weariness I said to myself: "And is this all!" an exclamation which soon afterwards became one of my most frequent unspoken reflections, a phrase indeed that I might well have taken for my motto.

When we returned I went to the wooden box to inspect our afternoon's work, and as I did so I inhaled the balsamic odor that had impregnated everything belonging to our theatre. For a long time after that, for a year or two, perhaps longer, the odor of the pine box containing the properties of the "Donkey's Skin" recalled vividly that May evening so filled with poignant sorrow, which was one of the most singular feelings of my childhood. Since I have come to man's estate I no longer suffer from anguish that has no known cause, doubly hard to endure because mysterious, I no longer feel as if my feet are treading unfathomable depths in search of a firm bottom. I no longer suffer without knowing why. No, such emotions belonged peculiarly to my childhood, and this book could properly bear the title (a dangerous one I well know): "A Journal of my extreme and inexplicable sorrows, and some of the boyish pranks by which I diverted my mind from them."



CHAPTER XXXVIII.



It was about this time that I installed myself in my aunt Claire's room for the purpose of study, and there too I busied myself manufacturing wonders for the "Donkey's Skin." I took possession of the place as entirely as an army occupies a conquered country—I would not admit the possibility of being in the way.

My aunt Claire was the person who petted me most. And it was she who was always so careful of my little things. She always looked after my finery or anything uncommonly fragile, things that the least breath of air would have blown away—such exquisitely delicate trifles, for example, as the wings of a butterfly, or the bright scale of a beetle, intended for the costumes of our nymphs and fairies—when I said to her: "Will you please take care of this, dear auntie?" I felt that I could be easy about it, for I knew that no one would be allowed to touch it.

One of the great attractions in her room was a bear that was used for holding burnt-almonds; and I often visited the place for the sole purpose of paying my respects to this animal. He was made of china and he sat upon his hind legs in the corner of the mantelpiece. According to a compact that I had with my aunt, every time that his head was turned to the side (and I found it so several times during a day) it meant that there was an almond or some other kind of candy for me. When I had eaten this I straightened his head to indicate that I had been there, and then I departed.

Aunt Claire enjoyed helping us with the "Donkey's Skin"; she worked enthusiastically over the costumes and each day I gave her some task. She was especially skilful in devising hair for the fairies and nymphs; she managed to fix upon their tiny heads, about as big as the end of a little finger, blond wigs made of light silk thread, this thread she twined upon the finest wires and thus she was able to twist it into beautiful ringlets.

Then when it became absolutely necessary for me to study my lessons, in the feverish haste of the last half hour that I reserved for my task, after having wasted my time in idleness of every sort, it was aunt Claire who came to my rescue; she would open the large dictionary and hunt up for me the unfamiliar words in the exercises and lessons. She also took up the study of Greek in order to assist me with my lessons in that language. When I studied my Greek I always led my aunt Claire to the stairway and I sprawled there upon the steps, my feet higher than my head; for two or three years that was the classic pose I took for the study of the Iliad, or Xenophon's Cyropedia.



CHAPTER XXXIX.



Thursday evening was a time of great rejoicing with me whenever a terrible storm descended upon Limoise, and thus made it impossible for me to return home that night.

It happened occasionally; and since I had had the experience, I used to hope that it might occur often, and especially did I wish for a storm when I had failed to prepare my lessons. One inhuman professor had instituted Thursday tasks, and it was necessary for me to drag my text and copy-books with me to Limoise; my beloved holidays, spent in the sweet open air, were overcast by their dark shadow.

One evening at about eight o'clock the much desired storm broke upon us with superb fury. Lucette and I were in the large drawing-room that resounded with the noise of the thunder, and we felt none too safe there. Its great wall-spaces were broken by only two or three old engravings in ancient frames. Lucette, under her mother's direction, was putting the finishing touches to a piece of needle work, and, on the rather worn-out piano, I was playing, with the soft pedal down, one of Rameau's dances; the old-fashioned music sounded exquisite to me as it mingled with the noise of the great thunder claps.

When Lucette's work was completed, she turned over the leaves of my copy-book lying on the table. After she had examined it she gave me a meaning look, intended only for my eyes, that said as plainly as a look can that she knew I had neglected my task. Suddenly she asked: "where did you leave your Duruy's 'History'?"

My Duruy's "History"! Where indeed had I left it? It was a new book with scarcely a blot in it. Great heavens! I had forgotten it and left it out of doors at the far end of the garden in the most removed asparagus bed. For my historical studies I had selected the asparagus bed which was like a bit of copse, for the feathery green plants, past their season, grew high and luxuriant; a hazel glen, leafy and impenetrable, and as shady as a verdant grotto, was the spot I had chosen for the more exacting and laborious work of Latin versification. As this time I was scolded by Lucette's mother for my great carelessness, we decided to go immediately and rescue the book.

We organized a search party, and at the head of it went a servant who carried a stable-lantern; Lucette and I walked behind him. Our feet were protected from the wet ground by wooden shoes, and with much difficulty we held over us a large umbrella that the wind constantly turned inside out.

Once outside I was no longer afraid; I opened my eyes wide and listened with all my ears. Oh! how wonderful, and yet how sinister, the end of the garden looked seen by those sudden and great flashes of green light that shimmered and trembled about us from time to time, and then left us blind in the blackness of the stormy night. And I shall never forget the impression made upon me by the continual crashing of the branches of the trees in the near-by oak forest.

We found Duruy's "History" in the asparagus bed all water soaked and mud bespattered. Before the storm the snails, exhilarated no doubt by the promise of rain, had crawled over the book and they had left their slimy, glistening traces upon it.

Those small tracks remained on the book for a long time, preserved, doubtless, by the paper cover that I put over them. They had the power to recall a thousand things to me, thanks to that peculiarity of my mind that associates the most dissimilar and incongruous images if only once, for a single favorable moment, they have been accidentally joined.

And therefore the little, shining, zig-zag marks on the cover of Duruy always brought to my mind Rameau's gay dance that I played on the shrill old piano, only to have it drowned by the noise of the raging storm; and the same little blotches also recall to me a vision that I had that night (one, no doubt, born of an engraving by Teniers that hung on the wall); there seemed to pass before my eyes little people belonging to a bygone age who danced in the shade of a wood like that of Limoise; the apparition awakened in me an appreciation of the pastoral gayety of that time, a conception of the abandon and joyousness of the picnickers who were dancing so merrily under the spreading branches of the oak trees.



CHAPTER XL.



And yet the return home from Limoise Thursday evenings would have had a great charm but for the remorse I almost always felt because of neglected duties.

My friends took me as far as the river in the carriage, or I rode on a donkey, or we walked. Once past the stony plateau on the south bank of the river, and once over it and upon the home side I found my father and sister awaiting me; I walked gayly beside them in the straight path lying between the extensive meadows that led to our house. I went at a brisk pace in my eagerness to see mamma, my aunts and our dear home.

When we entered the town, by the old disused gate, it was always dusk, the dusk of a spring or summer night; as we passed the barracks we heard the familiar drums and bugles sounding the hour for the sailors' all-too-early bed.

And when we arrived at the house I usually spied my beloved ones (clothed in their black dresses) seated in the honeysuckle arbor at the end of the yard, or they were sitting out under the stars.

Or, if the others had gone in, I was sure to find aunt Bertha there alone; she was a very independent person, and she dared defy even the dew and evening chill. After kissing and embracing me she pretended to smell of my clothes, and after sniffing a minute, to make me laugh, she would say: "Ah! you smell of Limoise, my darling."

And indeed I did have something of the fragrance of Limoise about me. When I came from there I was always impregnated with the odor of wild thyme and the other aromatic plants peculiar to that part of the country.



CHAPTER XLI.



Speaking of Limoise I will be vain enough to speak here of an act of mine that I consider as brave as it was obedient, for it fell in with a promise that I had given.

It happened a short time before my departure for the south, before that journey to the mountains with which my imagination was ever busy; it occurred in the month of July following my twelfth birthday.