Part 7

The flame of an unknown hearth sparkled in the distance, and in its vacillating light I saw strange beings that made me throb with pride; they were my sons. Then I wept, and I closed my eyes to prolong the vision of that reddish light and the prophetic apparition of the unborn. The grave was near; my locks were gray. But what of that? Would not half of my life remain in these children of love? Would not half of my soul remain with their mother? In vain did I try to recognize this wife, who was to share the twilight of my life. This future companion whom God holds for me sat with her back to me. I could not see her face. I looked for the reflection of her features in the faces of my sons, but the light from the hearth began to fail.

When it was out I still saw her, because I felt the warmth of her in my soul. I murmured:

"Christmas comes, Christmas--"

And I was asleep, perhaps dead.

I TAKE SUPPER WITH MY WIFE.

From the French of GUSTAVE DROZ.

It was Christmas Eve, and a devilishly cold night. The snow fell in great flakes, which the wind beat against the window-panes. The distant chimes reached us, confused and faint through the heavy, cottony atmosphere. The passers-by, muffled in their cloaks, glided along hurriedly, brushing by the walls of the houses, bending their heads before the wind. Wrapped in my dressing-gown, I smiled as I drummed on the window-pane, smiled at the passers-by, at the north wind and the snow, with the smile of a happy man who is in a warm room with his feet in a pair of flannel-lined slippers which sink into a thick, soft carpet.

My wife sat in a corner of the hearth with a great piece of cloth before her which she cut and trimmed off; and every now and then she raised her eyes, which met mine. A new book lay on the mantel-piece awaiting me, and a log in the fireplace whistled as it spit out those little blue flames which tempt one to poke it.

"There is nothing so stupid as a man trudging along in the snow. Is there?" said I.

"Sh-h-h!" said my wife, laying down her scissors. Then she stroked her chin thoughtfully with her tapering pink fingers, slightly plump at the extremities, and looked over very carefully the pieces she had just cut out.

"I say that it is absurd to go out into the cold when it is so easy to stay at home by the fire."

"Sh-h-h!"

"What the deuce are you doing that is so important?"

"I--I am cutting out a pair of suspenders for you;" and she resumed her task. Her hair was coiled a little higher than usual; and where I stood, behind her, I could just see, as she leaned over her work, the nape of her neck, white and velvety. Innumerable soft little locks curled there gracefully, and this pretty down reminded me of those ripe peaches into which we drive our teeth greedily. I leaned nearer to see and--kissed my wife on the neck.

"Monsieur!" exclaimed Louise, turning suddenly around.

"Madame!" and we both burst into a laugh.

"Come, come; on Christmas Eve!"

"Monsieur apologizes?"

"Madame complains?"

"Yes; Madame complains. Madame complains of your not being more moved, more thrilled by the spirit of Christmas. The ding-ding-dong from the bells of Notre Dame awakens no emotion in you; and when the magic-lantern went by under your very window, you were perfectly unmoved, utterly indifferent. I watched you attentively, though I pretended to work."

"Unmoved? Indifferent? I? When the magic lantern went by! Ah, my dear! you judge me very severely, and really--"

"Yes, yes; laugh if you will. It is nevertheless true that the pretty memories of your childhood are lost."

"Come, my pet, would you like me to stand my boots in the fireplace to-night before I go to bed? Would you like me to stop the magic-lantern man and go and get him a sheet and a candle-end, as my mother used to do? I can almost see her as she handed him the sheet. 'Be careful you don't tear it, now,' she would say; and we all clapped our hands in the mysterious obscurity. I remember all those joys, dear; but, you see, so many things have happened since. Other pleasures have obliterated those."

"Yes, I understand,--the pleasures of your bachelorhood! Come, now, I am sure this is the first Christmas Eve that has ever found you by your own fireside, in your dressing-gown and without a supper, because you always had supper; that goes without saying--"

"Why, I don't know--"

"Yes, yes; I wager you always had a supper."

"Well, perhaps I did, once or twice, although I scarcely remember; I may have had supper with a few old friends. And what did it all amount to? Two pennies' worth of chestnuts and--"

"And a glass of sugar and water."

"Well, just about. Oh, it was nothing much, I can assure you! It sounds great at a distance. We talked awhile, and then we went to bed."

"And he says all that with the straightest face! You have never breathed a word of these simple pleasures to me."

"But, my dear, what I tell you is the absolute truth. I remember once, however, at Ernest's, when I was in rather high spirits, we had a little music afterwards--Will you push me that log? Well, never mind; it is almost midnight, and time for all reasonable people to--"

(Louise, rising and throwing her arms around me.) "Well, I don't choose to be reasonable, and I mean to eclipse the memory of those penny chestnuts and all that sugar and water!" (Pushing me hastily into my study, and locking the door.)

"What the deuce is the matter with you, my dear?" I cried from the other side of the partition.

"Give me ten minutes, no more. Your paper is on the mantel-piece; you have not seen it to-night. You will find the matches in the corner."

Then I heard the rattle of china, the rustle of silky stuffs. Could my wife have gone crazy? At the end of about ten minutes she unlocked the door.

"Don't scold me for shutting you out," said she, embracing me. "Look at me. Have I not made myself beautiful? See! My hair just as you like it, high, and my neck uncovered. But my poor neck is so extremely shy that it never could have displayed itself in the broad light, if I had not encouraged it a little by wearing a low-necked gown. After all, it is only right to be in full-dress uniform at a supper with the authority."

"What supper?"

"Why, our supper. My supper with you, of course. Don't you see my illumination and the table covered with flowers and good things to eat? I had it all ready in the alcove; but, you see, to push the table before the fire and make something of a toilet, I had to be alone. I have a big drop of old Chambertin for you. Come, Monsieur, come to supper; I am as hungry as a bear! May I offer you this chicken-wing?"

"This is a charming idea of yours, my love, but I really feel ashamed of myself,--in my dressing-gown."

"Take it off, sir, if you are uncomfortable, but do not leave me with this chicken-wing on my hands. Wait a minute; I want to wait upon you myself." And rising, she swung her napkin over her arm and pulled up her sleeve to her elbow. "Isn't that the way the waiters do at the restaurants, tell me?"

"Exactly. But stop a moment, waiter; will you permit me to kiss your hand?"

"I haven't time," she said, smiling, and she drove the corkscrew bravely into the neck of a bottle. "Chambertin!--a pretty name. And, besides, do you remember, before we were married--_sapristi_, what a hard cork!--you told me you liked it on account of a play by Alfred de Musset?--which you never gave me to read, by the way. Do you see those little Bohemian glass tumblers that I bought especially for to-night? We will drink each other's health in them."

"And his too, eh?"

"The heir's, you mean? Poor little love of an heir, I should think so! Then I shall hide the two glasses and bring them out again this day next year, eh, dear? They will be the Christmas-supper glasses, and we will have supper every year before the hearth, you and I alone, until our very old, old age."

"Yes; but when we shall have lost all our teeth--"

"Never mind; we shall have nice little soups, and it will none the less be very sweet. Another piece for me, please, with a little jelly, thank you."

As she held out her plate to me, I caught a glimpse of her arm, the pretty contours of which disappeared in the lace.

"What are you looking up my sleeve for instead of eating?"

"I am looking at your arm, dear. You are exquisitely pretty to-night; do you know it? Your hair is wonderfully becoming, and that gown--I had never seen that gown before."

"_Dame!_ When a person starts out to make a conquest!"

"You are adorable!"

"Are you quite sure that I am adorable to-night, charming, ravishing?" Then, looking at her bracelet attentively, "In that case I don't see why--I don't see--"

"What is it that you don't see, dear?"

"I don't see why you don't come and kiss me."

And as the kiss was prolonged, she threw her head back, showing the double row of her pretty white teeth, exclaiming between her peals of laughter,--

"Give me some more _pâté_! I want some more _pâté_! Take care! You are going to break my Bohemian glass, the fruit of my economy! There is always some disaster when you try to kiss me. You remember at Madame de Brill's ball, two nights before we were married, how you tore my gown while we were waltzing in the little parlor?"

"Well, but it is very difficult to do two things at once,--keep time with the music and kiss your partner."

"I remember when mamma asked me how I tore my gown, I felt that I was blushing up to the roots of my hair. And Madame D., that old yellow witch, said to me with her lenten smile, 'What a brilliant color you have to-night, my child!' I could have choked her! I said I had caught my gown on a nail in the door. I was watching you out of the corner of my eye. You were twirling your mustache, and you seemed quite vexed. You keep all the truffles for yourself,--how nice of you! Not that one; I want that big black one there,--in the corner. Well, after all, it was none the less very wrong, because--no, no, don't fill my glass; I don't want to get tipsy--because if we had not married (that might have happened, you know; they say that marriages hang by a thread), well, if the thread had not been strong enough, here I was left with that kiss on my shoulder,--a pretty plight!"

"Nonsense! It does not stain."

"Yes, sir, it does; I beg your pardon, but it does stain, and so much so that there are husbands, I am told, who spill their blood to wash out those little stains."

"I was only jesting, dear. Heavens! I should think it did! Fancy! Why--"

"Ah, I am glad to hear you say so. I like to see you get angry. You are just a wee bit jealous, tell me, are you not? Well, upon my word! I asked you for the big black one, and you are quietly eating it!"

"I am very sorry, my love; I beg your pardon. I forgot all about it."

"Yes, just as you did when we were being married. I was obliged to touch your elbow to make you answer yes to Monsieur the Mayor's kind words!"

"Kind words?"

"Yes, kind words. I thought the mayor was charming. No one could have been more happy than he was in addressing me. 'Mademoiselle, do you consent to take this great big ugly little man who stands beside you for your lawful--' [Laughing with her mouth full.] I was about to say to him, 'Let us understand each other, Monsieur; there is much to be said for and against.' Heavens! I am choking! [Bursts into great peals of laughter.] I was wrong in not making some restrictions. There! I am teasing you, and that is stupid. I said yes with my whole heart, I assure you, my darling, and the word was only too weak. When I think that all women, even the bad ones, use that same word, I feel ashamed of not having invented a better one. [Holding up her glass.] Here is to our golden wedding!"

"And here is to his christening, little mother!"

In an undertone: "Tell me, dear, are you sorry you married me?"

(Laughing.) "Yes. [Kissing her on the shoulder.] I think I have found the stain. Here it is."

"Do you realize that it is two o'clock. The fire is out. I am--you won't laugh? Well, I am just a little dizzy!"

"That was a famous _pâté_!"

"A famous _pâté_! We will have a cup of tea in the morning, eh, dear?"

THE YULE LOG.

From the French of JULES SIMON.

Yesterday was my birthday. A number of friends who have never seen me wrote to congratulate me upon having reached the age of eighty. They are mistaken; I am not as old as all that. I can readily understand that a few years more or less make very little difference to them, but they certainly make all the difference in the world to me. I am still far from the dignity of an octogenarian; yet I confess that I am very old, and at my age one likes to recall one's early childhood. It is a very well-known fact that old people,--it seems that I am old, which makes me furious, and I really believe that I should scarcely realize it, if people did not take particular pains, out of pure kindness, of course, to remind me of it every moment,--it is a well-known fact, I say, that old people recall the first scenes of their life with marvellous accuracy. I have often heard Chevreul speak of having been present on the Place de la Révolution at the very moment when Louis XVI. was executed. His nurse had carried him there, the wretch! He neither saw nor understood anything; but he remembered the words of a _garde nationale_ who scolded the woman for having brought a child to such a place. "He delivered there and then a perfect sermon on the subject," he used to say, "and I remember every word of it." But let us not speak of tragedies.

I want to take you with me to Brittany, not without having first warned you against myself, however. You must not take me too literally when I describe the customs of that country. My descriptions are absolutely faithful, but they represent Brittany as it was from 1815 to 1830. I went back there this summer after an absence of half a century, and I recognized nothing but the scenery. The men are all civilized, and far more Parisian than I. In order to re-classify them I should have been compelled to drive them back to their national dress, that they so foolishly gave up.

I will take you back, therefore, to the year 1822; and you would not doubt it for an instant if you could follow me into my father's study. The walls were papered with Republican money. He had obtained it in exchange for cash; and when it turned out to be as worthless as waste paper, he determined that it should be of some use to him anyway. I fancy that its usefulness consisted in reminding him of the fragility of human things. The walls were also decorated with portraits of the royal family, from the King down to M. de Villèle, all tacked on with pins. But these portraits were not to be relied upon, for when they were turned upside down, they represented, by some ingenious combination, the Ogre of Corsica, the King of Rome, and the Empress Marie Louise. They were suited to all tastes and all opinions.

This extraordinary study was situated on the first floor,--for our house had a first floor, differing thus from the other houses of the borough, which had nothing but a ground floor. It also had a slate roof, which filled me with legitimate pride. It looked out upon the street which circled the graveyard; and I will say at once, to be sincere, that there was no other street in St. Jean Brévelay. This view and this neighborhood will not strike you, with your modern ideas, as very attractive; but in Brittany we like graveyards,--I might even say that we like sadness. And then in this graveyard stood the church,--an imposing church, I can assure you, with a vault upon which hell was faithfully represented on one side and heaven on the other. Near our window there was also a great fir, which was worth a whole forest in itself, and which sheltered a formidable number of crows. If, however, in spite of this double attraction one found no pleasure in contemplating the view from that side, we had another façade to resort to,--a façade opening upon an immense and magnificent garden. There you might have looked down upon a patch of cabbage, a patch of French beans, of peas, of carrots, and of potatoes. We had flowers too,--so many flowers, so many vegetables, and so much fruit, that we made gratuitous distributions of them every Sunday. Besides our apple-trees, the branches of which bent under the weight of the fruit, we had pear-trees, cherry-trees, and plum-trees. My father, who had travelled considerably, particularly through the South, prided himself upon his enterprising spirit. Every year when the plums had been picked, he collected them in great piles; from these piles the best were chosen, put upon a species of riddles, and the riddles were laid in the sun. This was with a view to making prunes. The plums rotted in a few days; the birds and other animals ate them; and soon there was nothing left but the stones. These were then thrown into the street, where we used to pick them up, in order to make piles and stick a little flag in the top. The next year my father proceeded to make prunes in precisely the same manner.

We were very proud of our rose-bushes, which furnished roses for the altars, and of our apple-trees, from which we obtained a most excellent cider. We had our wine-press, our kneading-trough, our oven, and our laundrying basins. We had pastures for our cows, wheat-fields, fields of buckwheat and of rye. We sowed just enough to supply our wants. There was no mill in our village, so we were compelled to send our grain to Pontécouvrant. When it was ground, it was brought back and made into very good rye bread for our daily use. We also made a great loaf of wheat bread once a week, which we used for the soup.

Every morning my father started out, gun on shoulder,--for in those days there were no rural constables nor gendarmes (the gendarmes were at Plumelec), and one could hunt all the year round. He came in at noon for dinner, and at six o'clock for supper. My greatest delight consisted in running to meet him and looking into his game-bag. I never found any game in it, but it often contained a big trout or some fine eels. We eventually discovered that the hunt was a mere pretext, and that his real passion was fishing. He was extremely taciturn, as all of his children have been after him, and I believe that to be one of the essential qualities of an angler.

During dinner he never breathed a word. In the evening at supper he described the events of the day, when he had been lucky. We took our meals in the kitchen, which was vast and cleanly. There were twenty of us at table, and sometimes more, owing to the legendary Breton hospitality. The table formed a long rectangle. My mother occupied one end of it with my sisters and myself; my father sat at the other end alone; while the two long sides were reserved for the servants. These were no less than twelve in number: the gardener, the ploughman, the shepherd, the stable-boy, and the maid-servants. This will no doubt give you the impression of the household of a wealthy farmer or a country gentleman. Not at all. In the beautiful borough of St. Jean Brévelay there was neither butcher, baker, nor grocer. The only merchants that I ever saw there were a mercer and a tavern-keeper. One was compelled to send to Vannes, seven leagues away, for everything, or else live like Robinson Crusoe on his island.

I have learned since that the ploughman, who was our first man, earned only thirty francs a year. I leave you to judge of the rest. It was a poor country, and one could enjoy all the comforts which it afforded with an income of twelve hundred francs a year. One of our chief pleasures consisted in the care of our garden. My mother had a little bed in which roses, tulips, pansies, and daisies grew in abundance. She was particularly fond of mignonette and honey-suckle. The hedge around our kitchen-garden was covered with honey-suckle, elder, and a whole family of sweet-smelling creepers, over which our bees hovered and buzzed. There was seldom a day when we did not walk around the garden once, and that was quite a journey. We had another habit which I do not understand as well, and which consisted in walking around Colas' field every day after dinner; that is, at one o'clock. We first went down a hollow road where the mud was not wanting when it had rained. The flowers were not wanting there either in summer; we walked under a real vault of them. This road led to the blacksmith's shop, where I always found something to admire,--the great bellows, the incandescent iron, the sparks flying from the furnace like joyous fireworks. Next to the blacksmith's shop stood Marion's house,--the last house at the end of the village. Marion was a girl of twenty who had lost her mother when she was eighteen. Everybody had advised her to go into service; but she had preferred to engage herself to my mother as a seamstress, by the year. Her house--"Marion's house," as it was always spoken of--belonged to her. It was not a great dowry. It consisted of two rooms under a thatched roof, and a little yard where she raised her chickens. She had been warned against the dangers of living alone at her age, and in a comparatively isolated place; but she was a fearless girl and somewhat unsociable. She had discovered, I do not know where,--in one of the neighboring farms, perhaps,--a widow who was only too happy to occupy one of her rooms gratuitously, and who was a companion and a protection to her when she came home after her day's work.

Colas' field began at Marion's door. It was surely not what one would call beautiful. We walked straight before us, and got back to our starting-point at the end of an hour without having seen anything but apple-trees and furrows. On Sunday when this task had been accomplished, we found Marion in her yard among her chickens, waiting to go to vespers with us. I always took her hand, and she told me stories of Poulpiquets.

I led a joyful life. My mother, too, seemed happy. Her chief occupation lay in nursing the sick, and her heaviest expense in providing them with broth and drugs; the latter were sent for to the druggist's at Bignan. I had never seen a doctor until I went to Lorient to enter school. Whenever she had a perplexing case, she called my father into consultation. As he had been a soldier, nothing surprised him. His method was to bleed. He one day undertook to vaccinate the entire population, and succeeded in doing so by offering five cents to all those who consented to honor him with their trust. This philanthropic operation must have made a great hole in the household budget.

We had a library which contained fully twenty volumes. My sisters spent their time in taking them from my mother's room, and my mother in taking them from their hands. There were,--"Celina, or, The Child of Mystery and of Love;" "Alexis, or, The Wooden Cottage;" "The Helmet and the Square Cap, or, Both suited him." We also had, "The Evenings at the Château," by Madame de Genlis, "The Yellow Tales," and "Robinson Crusoe." I was of course not permitted to touch the novels. I was allowed "Robinson Crusoe," "The Yellow Tales," and "The Evenings at the Château," of which permission I availed myself eagerly, for I was ever a great reader. "Robinson Crusoe" particularly delighted me, and I read it three or four times a year. I had also a tender feeling for "Celina," which I only half understood. In the first place, it represented the forbidden fruit; and in the next place, it had pictures. I never got to the _dénouement_, because my mother, seeing that I was incorrigible, resolved to burn the _cuerpo del delito_.