The Story of a Child

As if it were yesterday I recall the evening when I suddenly discovered that I could run and jump; and I remember that I was intoxicated by the delicious sensation almost to the point of falling.

This must have been at about the commencement of my second winter. At the sad hour of twilight I was in the dining-room of my parents' house, which room had always seemed a very vast one to me. At first, I was quiet, made so, no doubt, by the influence of the environing darkness, for the lamp was not yet lighted. But as the hour for dinner approached, a maid-servant came in and threw an armful of small wood into the fireplace to reanimate the dying fire. Immediately there was a beautiful bright light, and the leaping flames illuminated everything, and waves of light spread to the far part of the room where I sat. The flames danced and leaped with a twining motion ever higher and higher and more gayly, and the tremulous shadows along the wall ran to their hiding-places-oh! how quickly I arose overwhelmed with admiration for I recollect that I had been sitting at the feet of my great-aunt Bertha (at that time already very old) who half dozed in her chair. We were near a window through which the gray night filtered; I was seated upon one of those high, old-fashioned foot-stools with two steps, so convenient for little children who can from that vantage ground put their heads in grandmother's or grand-aunt's lap, and wheedle so effectually.

I arose in ecstasy, and approached the flames; then in the circle of light which lay upon the carpet I began to walk around and around and to turn. Ever faster and faster I went, until suddenly I felt an unwonted elasticity run through my limbs, and in a twinkling I invented a new and amusing style of motion; it was to push my feet very hard against the floor, and then to lift them up together suddenly for a half second. When I fell, up I sprang and recommenced my play. Bang! Bang! With every increasing noise I went against the floor, and at last I began to feel a singular but agreeable giddiness in my head. I knew how to jump! I knew how to run!

I am convinced that that is my earliest distinct recollection of great joyousness.

"Dear me! What is the matter with the child this evening?" asked my great-aunt Bertha, with some anxiety. And I hear again the unexpected sound of her voice.

But I still kept on jumping. Like those tiny foolish moths which of an evening revolve about the light of a lamp, I went around in the luminous circle which widened and retracted, ever taking form from the wavering light of the flames. And I remember all of this so vividly that my eyes can still see the smallest details of the texture of the carpet which was the scene of the event. It was of durable stuff called home-spun, woven in the country by native weavers. (Our house was still furnished as it had been in my maternal grandmother's time, as she had arranged it after she had quitted the Island, and come to the mainland.-A little later I will speak of this Island which had already a mysterious attraction for my youthful imagination.-It was a simple country house, notable for its Huguenot austerity; and it was a home where immaculate cleanliness and extreme order were the sole luxuries.)

In the circle of light, which grew ever more and more narrow, I still jumped; but as I did so I had thoughts that were of an intensity not habitual with me. At the same time that my tiny limbs discovered their power, my spirit also knew itself; a burst of light overspread my mind where dawning ideas still showed forth feebly. And it is without doubt to the inner awakening that this fleeting moment of my life owes its existence, owes undoubtedly its permanency in memory. But vainly I seek for the words, that seem ever to escape me, through which to express my elusive emotions. . . . Here in the dining-room I look about and see the chairs standing the length of the wall, and I am reminded of the aged grandmother, grand-aunts and aunts who always come at a certain hour and seat themselves in them. Why are they not here now? At this moment I would like to feel their protecting presence about me. Probably they are upstairs in their rooms on the second floor; between them and me there is the dim stairway, the stairway that I people with shadowy beings the thought of which makes me tremble. . . . And my mother? I would wish most especially for her, but I know that she has gone out, gone out into the long streets which in my imagination have no end. I had myself gone to the door with her and had asked her: "When returnest thou?" And she had promised me that she would return speedily. Later they told me that when I was a child I would never permit any members of the family to leave the house to go walking or visiting without first obtaining their assurance of a speedy homecoming. "You will come back soon?" I would say, and I always asked the question anxiously, as I followed them to the door.

My mother had departed, and it gave my heart a feeling of heaviness to know that she was out. Out in the streets! I was content not to be there where it was cold and dark, where little children so easily lost their way,-how snug it was to be within doors before the fire that warmed me through and through; how nice it was to be at home! I had never realized it until this evening-doubtless it was my first distinct feeling of attachment to hearth and home, and I was sadly troubled at the thought of the immense, strange world lying beyond the door. It was then that I had, for the first time, a conscious affection for my aged aunts and grand-aunts, who cared for me in infancy, whom I longed to have seated around me at this dim, sad, twilight hour.

In the meantime the once bright and playful flames had died down, the armful of wood was consumed, and as the lamp was not lighted, the room was quite dark. I had already stumbled upon the home-spun carpet, but as I had not hurt myself, I recommenced my amusing play. For an instant I thought to experience a new but strange joy by going into the shadowy and distant recesses of the room; but I was overtaken there by an indefinable terror of something which I cannot name, and I hastily took refuge in the dim circle of light and looked behind me with a shudder to see whether anything had followed me from out of those dark corners. Finally the flames died away entirely, and I was really afraid; aunt Bertha sat motionless upon her chair, and although I felt that her eyes were upon me I was not reassured. The very chairs, the chairs ranged about the room, began to disquiet me because their long shadows, that stretched behind them exaggerating the height of ceiling and length of wall, moved restlessly like souls in the agonies of death. And especially there was a half-open door that led into a very dark hall, which in its turn opened into a large empty parlor absolutely dark. Oh! with what intensity I fixed my eyes upon that door to which I would not for the world have turned my back!

This was the beginning of those daily winter-evening terrors which in that beloved home cast such a gloom over my childhood.

What I feared to see enter that door had no well defined form, but the fear was none the less definite to me: and it kept me standing motionless near the dead fire with wide open eyes and fluttering heart. When my mother suddenly entered the room by a different door, oh! how I clung to her and covered my face with her dress: it was a supreme protection, the sanctuary where no harm could reach me, the harbor of harbors where the storm is forgotten. . . .

At this instant the thread of recollection breaks, I can follow it no farther.

After the ineffaceable impression left by that first fright and that first dance before the winter fire many months passed during which no other events were engraven upon my memory, and I relapsed into a twilight state similar to that at the commencement of my life. But the mental dimness was pierced now and again with a bright light; as the gray of early morning is tinged by the rose-color of dawning.

I believe that the impressions which succeeded were those of the summer time, of the great sun and nature. I recall feeling an almost delicious terror when one day I found myself alone in the midst of tall June grasses that grew high as my head. But here the secret working of self consciousness is almost too entangled with the things of the past for me to explain it.

We were visiting at a country place called Limoise, a place that at later time played a great part in my life. It belonged to neighbors and friends, the D--s, whose house in town was directly next to ours. Perhaps I had visited Limoise the preceding summer, but at that time I was very like a cocoon before it has crawled from its silken wrapping. The day that I now refer to is the one in which I was able to reflect for the first time, in which I first knew the sweetness of reverie.

I have forgotten our departure, the carriage ride and our arrival. But I remember distinctly that late one hot afternoon, as the sun was setting, I found myself alone in a remote part of a deserted garden. The gray walls overgrown with ivy and mosses separated its grove of trees from the moorland and the rocky country round about it. For me, brought up in the city, the old and solitary garden, where even the fruit trees were dying from old age, had all the mystery and charm of a primeval forest. I crossed a border of box, and I was in the midst of a large uncultivated tract filled with climbing asparagus and great weeds. Then I cowered down, as is the fashion of little children, that I might be more effectually hidden by what hid me sufficiently already, and I remained there motionless with eyes dilated and with quickening spirit, half afraid, half enraptured. The feeling that I experienced in the presence of these unfamiliar things was one of reflection rather than of astonishment. I knew that the bright green vegetation closing in about me was every where in no less measure than in the heart of this forest, and emotions, sad and weird and vague took possession of me and affrighted but fascinated me. That I might remain hidden as long as possible I crouched lower and still lower, and I felt the joy a little Indian boy feels when he is in his beloved forest.

Suddenly I heard someone call: "Pierre! Pierre! Dear Pierre!" I did not reply, but instead lay as close as possible to the ground, and sought to hide under the weeds and the waving branches of the asparagus.

Still I heard: "Pierre, Pierre." It was Lucette; I knew her voice, and from the mockery of her tone I felt sure that she had spied me. But I could not see her although I looked about me very carefully: no one was visible!

With peals of laughter she continued to call, and her voice grew merrier and merrier. Where can she be? thought I.

Ah! At last I spied her perched upon the twisted branch of a tree that was overhung with gray moss!

I was fairly caught and I came out of my green hiding place.

As I rose I gazed over the wild and flowering things, and saw the corner of the old moss-grown wall that enclosed the garden. That wall was destined to be at a later time a very familiar haunt of mine, for on the Thursday holidays during my college life I spent many a happy hour sitting upon it contemplating the peaceful and quiet country, and there I mused, to the chirping accompaniment of the crickets, of those distant countries fairer and sunnier than my own. And upon that summer day those gray and crumbling stones, defaced by the sun and weather, and overgrown with mosses, gave me for the first time an indefinable impression of the persistence of things; a vague conception of existences antedating my own, in times long past.

Lucette D--, my elder by eight or ten years, seemed to me already a grown person. I cannot recall the time when I did not know her. Later I came to love her as a sister, and her early death in her prime was one of the first real griefs of my boyhood.

And the first recollection I have of her is as I saw her in the branches of the old pear tree. Her image doubtless begets a vividness from the two new emotions with which it is blended: the enchanting uneasiness I felt at the invasion of green nature and the melancholy reverie that took possession of me as I contemplated the old wall, type of ancient things and olden times.

My mother!-I have already mentioned her two or three times in the course of this recital, but without stopping to speak of her at length. It seems that at first she was no more to me than a natural and instinctive refuge where I ran for shelter from all terrifying and unfamiliar things, from all the dark forebodings that had no real cause.

But I believe she took on reality and life for the first time in the burst of ineffable tenderness which I felt when one May morning she entered my room with a bouquet of pink hyacinths in her hand; she brought in with her as she came a ray of sunlight.

I was convalescing from one of the maladies peculiar to children,-measles or whooping cough, I know not which,-and I had been ordered to remain in bed and to keep warm. By the rays of light that filtered in through the closed shutters I divined the springtime warmth and brightness of the sun and air, and I felt sad that I had to remain behind the curtains of my tiny white bed; I wished to rise and go out; but most of all I had a desire to see my mother.

The door opened and she entered, smiling. Ah, I remember it so well! I recall so distinctly how she looked as she stood upon the threshold of the door. And I remember that she brought in with her some of the sunlight and balminess of the spring day.

I see again the expression of her face as she looked at me; and I hear the sound of her voice, and recall the details of her beloved dress that would look funny and old-fashioned to me now. She had returned from her morning shopping, and she wore a straw hat trimmed with yellow roses and a shawl of lilac barege (it was the period of the shawl) sprinkled with tiny bouquets of violets. Her dark curls (the poor beloved curls to-day, alas! so thin and white) were at this time without a gray hair. There was about her the fragrance of the May day, and her face as it looked that morning with its broad brimmed hat is still distinctly present with me. Besides the bouquet of pink hyacinths, she had brought me a tiny watering-pot, an exact imitation in miniature of the crockery ones so much used by the country people.

As she leaned over my bed to embrace me I felt as if every wish was gratified. I no longer had a desire to weep, nor to rise from my bed, nor to go out. She was with me and that sufficed-I was consoled, tranquillized, and re-created by her gracious presence.

I was, I think, a little more than three years old at this time, and my mother must have been about forty-two years of age; but I had not the least notion of age in regard to her, and it had never occurred to me to wonder whether she was young or old; nor did I realize until a later time that she was beautiful. No, at this period that she was her own dear self was enough; to me she was in face and form a person so apart and so unique that I would not have dreamed of comparing her with any one else. From her whole being there emanated such a joyousness, security and tenderness, and so much goodness that from thence was born my understanding of faith and prayer.

I would that I could speak hallowed words to the first blessed form that I find in the book of memory. I would it were possible that I could greet my mother with words filled with the meaning I wish to convey. They are words which cause bountiful tears to flow, but tears fraught with I know not how much of the sweetness of consolation and joy, words that are ever, and in spite of everything, filled with the hope of an immortal reunion.

And since I have touched upon this mystery that has had such an influence upon my soul, I will here set down that my mother alone is the only person in the world of whom I have the feeling that death cannot separate me. With other human beings, those whom I have loved with all my heart and soul, I have tried to imagine a hereafter, a to-morrow in which there shall be no to-morrow; but no, I cannot! Rather I have always had a horrible consciousness of our nothingness-dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Because of my mother alone have I been able to keep intact the faith of my early days. It still seems to me that when I have finished playing my poor part in life, when I no longer run in the overgrown paths that lead to the unattainable, when I am through amusing humanity with my conceits and my sorrows, I will go there where my mother, who has gone before me, is, and she will receive me; and the smile of serenity that she now wears in my memory will have become one of triumphant realization.

True, I see that distant region only dimly, and it has no more substance than a pale gray vision; my words, however intangible and elusive, give too definite a form to my dreamy conceptions. But still (I speak as a little child, with the child's faith), but still I always think of my mother as having, in that far off place, preserved her earthly aspect. I think of her with her dear white curls and the straight lines of her beautiful profile that the years may have impaired a little, but which I still find perfect. The thought that the face of my mother shall one day disappear from my eyes forever, that it is no more than combined elements subject to disintegration, and that she will be lost in the universal abyss of nothingness, not only makes my heart bleed, but it causes me to revolt as at something unthinkable and monstrous; it cannot be! I have the feeling that there is about her something which death cannot touch.

My love for my mother (the only changeless love of my life) is so free from all material feeling that that alone gives me an inexplicable hope, almost gives me a confidence in the immortality of the soul.

I cannot very well understand why the vision of my mother near my bed of sickness should that morning have impressed me so vividly, for she was nearly always with me. It all seems very mysterious; it is as if at that particular moment she was for the first time revealed to me.

And why among the treasured playthings of my childhood has the tiny watering-pot taken on the value and sacred dignity of a relic? So much so indeed, that when I am far distant on the ocean, in hours of danger, I think of it with tenderness, and see it in the place where it has lain for years, in the little bureau, never opened, mixed in with broken toys; and should it disappear I would feel as if I had lost an amulet that could not be replaced.

And the simple shawl of lilac barege, found recently among some old clothing laid aside to be given to the poor, why have I put it away as carefully as if it were a priceless object? Because in its color (now faded), in its quaint Indian pattern and tiny bouquets of violets, I still find an emanation from my mother; I believe that I borrow therefrom a holy calm and sweet confidence that is almost a faith. And mingled in with the other feelings there is perhaps a melancholy regret for those May mornings of long ago that seemed so much brighter than are those of to-day.

Truly I fear this book, the most personal I have ever written, will weary many.

In transcribing these memories in the calm of middle life, so favorable to reverie, I had constantly present in my thought the lovely queen to whom I would dedicate this book; it is as if I were writing her a long letter with the full assurance of being understood in all those sacred matters to which words give but an inadequate expression.

Perhaps you will understand also, my dear unknown readers, who with kindly sympathy have followed me thus far; and all those who cherish, or who have been cherished by their mothers will not smile at the childish things written down here.

But this chapter will certainly seem ridiculous to those who are strangers to an all absorbing love, they will not be able to imagine that I have a deep pity to exchange for their cynical smiles.