Part 14

"_18th._--I am furious with the grey cat. This naughty animal has just carried off a little pigeon that I was trying to re-animate by the corner of the fire. It was beginning to revive, poor creature! I wanted to tame it--it would have loved me; and, behold! all the fond hope scraunched by a cat. How many are the disappointments of life! This event, and all those of the day, have happened in the kitchen. I remain there all the morning and a part of the evening while I am without Mimi. It is necessary to look after the cook. Papa sometimes comes down, and I read to him by the oven, or the corner of the fire, some pieces from 'The Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church,' This great book astonished Pierril. 'What words there are there!' he exclaimed. This child is quite droll. One evening he asked me if the soul was immortal; afterwards what was a philosopher. We were on great questions, as you see. Upon my replying that a philosopher was a person wise and learned, 'Then, mademoiselle,' said he, 'you are a philosopher.' This was said with an air of _naïveté_ and of freshness which might have flattered Socrates, but which made me laugh so much that my gravity as catechist went for the night. This child has left us lately, to his great regret; the term was up on St. Brice's day. Now he goes with a little pig seeking truffles. If he comes by here I shall ask him if he sees in me yet a philosophic look.

"With whom do you think I spent this morning by the corner of the kitchen fire? With Plato. I durst not say it, but he came under my notice, and I wanted to make his acquaintance. I am only at the earliest pages. He seems to me to be admirable, this Plato; but I find in him a singular idea. He places health before beauty in the list of the good things which God gives us. If he had consulted a woman Plato would not have written that! Do you think it good? Remembering that _I am a philosopher_, I am rather of his opinion. When one is very ill in bed, one would willingly sacrifice complexion or beautiful eyes in order to recover health and enjoy sunshine. When I was a child I should have wished to be beautiful; I dreamed only of beauty, because I said to myself, Mamma would love me more. Thanks to God, that age of infancy has passed, and I enjoy no other beauty than that of the soul. Perhaps even in that I am a child, as formerly: I should wish to resemble the angels. That also might be displeasing to God, for it is also that one might be loved more. What things come to me if it were not necessary to leave you! But my chaplet, I must say it. The night has come; I like to finish the day in prayer.

"_20th._--I love the snow. This white expanse is something celestial. The mire, the naked earth displeases me, saddens me; to-day I perceive only the trace of the roads and the footmarks of the little birds. Softly as they alight, they leave their little traces, which make a thousand figures upon the snow. It is pretty to see the little red claws, which as crayons of coral design them. The winter has its beautiful things, its adorning. We find charms everywhere when we learn to see them. _God sheds grace and beauty everywhere._ I must now go to see what there is pleasant at the corner of the kitchen-fire; sparks if I wish. This is only a little good-morning I am saying to the snow and to you on jumping out of bed.

"It has been necessary to prepare an extra dish for Sauveur Roquier, who has come to see us. It was ham, cured in sugar, over which the poor boy licked his lips. Good things do not often come to his mouth; it is therefore that I wish to treat him well. It seems to me that it is to the destitute we should give attention--humanity, charity tell us so.

"No reading to-day. I have made a hood for a little one, which has taken all my time. But provided one works, whether it be with the head or the fingers, it is quite equal in the eyes of God, who takes account of every work done in His name. I hope, then, that my hood will take the place of a charity. I have given my time, together with a little skin from my fingers which the needle has taken off, as well as a thousand interesting lines that I should have _been_ able to read. The day before yesterday papa brought me from Clairac 'Ivanhoe' and 'The Age of Louis XIV.' Here is provision for some of the long winter evenings.

"It is I who am the reader, but by fits and starts. It is sometimes a key that is wanted, a thousand things, often myself, and the book is closed for a moment. Ah! Mimin, when will you return to help the poor housekeeper, by whom you are wanted every moment? Have I told you that yesterday I had news of her at the market of C----, where I went? What yawns I left upon that poor balcony! At last the letter of Mimi arrived, quite on purpose to relieve my weariness, and it was the only pleasant thing I saw at C----.

"I put nothing here yesterday; a blank page is better than trivialities, and I should not have been able to say anything else. I was tired, I was sleepy. To-day it is much better; I have seen the snow come and go. Since I got my dinner a fine sun has shone; no more snow; at present the black, the ugly reappear. What shall I see to-morrow morning? Who knows? The face of the world changes so quickly!"

"_24th._--How beautiful must be the heaven of heavens! This is what I have been thinking during the time I have just spent in contemplation under a most beautiful winter sky. It is my practice to open my window before going to bed to see what sort of weather it is, and, if fine, to enjoy it a moment. To-night I looked longer than usual; it was so ravishing, this beautiful night. But for the fear of taking cold I should be there still. I thought of God, who has made our prison so radiant; I thought of the saints, who have all these beauteous stars beneath their feet; I thought of you, who were, perhaps, looking up to them like me. I could have stayed there easily all night; however, it was necessary to shut the window to all the beauty outside, and to close the eyes under curtains. Eran has brought me to-night two letters from Louise. They are charming, ravishing to the mind, soul, and heart, and all for me. I know not why I am not transported, intoxicated with friendship. God knows, however, that I love it!

"No place in the world is so pleasant to me as home. Oh! the happy home! How I grieve for you, poor exile, so far from it, seeing only your kindred in thought, being unable to bid good morning or good night, living a stranger, having father, brother, sisters, not living with you but elsewhere! All that is sad, but I cannot desire anything else for you. We cannot have you, but I hope to see you again, and that consoles me; a thousand times I think of that, and foresee how happy we shall be."

"_29th._-- ... Oh! how sweet it is, when the rain is heard pattering, to be by the corner of one's fire, tongs in one's hand, making sparks! This was my amusement just now. I am very fond of it; sparks are so pretty! They are the flowers of the chimney. Really, there are charming things going on about the embers, and, when I am not occupied, I amuse myself in watching the phantasmagoria of the hearth. There are a thousand little hearth-forms coming, going, dilating, changing, disappearing; now angels, now horned demons, children, old women, butterflies, dogs, sparrows. One sees a little of everything in the firebrand. I remember one figure, bearing an expression of heavenly suffering, which seemed to me to depict a soul in purgatory. I was struck by it, and should like to have had a painter with me. There was never a vision more perfect. Notice the logs burning and you will agree with me that there are beautiful things, and that unless we are blind we ought not to find time tedious beside a fire. Listen especially to that little whistle which sometimes comes from below the burning coal, like a voice that sings. Nothing is more sweet or pure; one would say it was some very diminutive spirit of fire that sings."

"_Last day of December._--Christmas is come; beautiful festival, the one that I love the most of all, which brings me as much joy as to the shepherds of Bethlehem. Truly, the whole soul sings at this glad advent of God, which is announced on all sides by carols and the pretty nadalet. In Paris nothing can give you the idea of what Christmas is. You have not even the midnight mass. We all went to it, with papa at our head, by an enchanting night. Never was there a more beautiful sky than that midnight one, so that papa from time to time put his head from under his cloak to look up. The ground was white with hoar-frost, but we were not cold; the air, besides, was warmed before us by the torches that our servants took to light us. It was charming, I assure you, and I wished I could have seen you walking along, like us, towards the church, through roads bordered with little bushes, white, as if in full blossom. The frost makes beautiful flowers. We saw one sprig so pretty that we wanted to make a nosegay of it for the blessed sacrament, but it melted in our hands. All flowers are short-lived. I much regret my bouquet; it was sad to see it melt and disappear drop by drop.... Here then are my last thoughts, for I shall write nothing more this year. In some hours it will be finished; we shall begin another. Oh! how fast time flies! Alas! Alas! Would one not say that I am regretting it? My God, no; I regret neither time, nor what it takes away from us. It is not worth while to throw one's affections into the torrent. But the empty, careless days, lost as regards heaven, these are what cause regret and make us think upon life. Dear brother, where shall I be on this same day, at this same time, this instant, next year? Shall I be here or elsewhere? Here below, or above? God knows; and here I am at the gate of the future, resigning myself to whatever can issue from it. To-morrow I shall pray that you may be happy; for papa, for Mimi, for all whom I love. It is the day of gifts. I am going to take mine to heaven. I draw everything from thence; for, truly, on earth I find but few things to my taste. The longer I live here, the less I enjoy it; and accordingly I see, without any regret, the approach of years, which are so many steps towards the other world. It is neither pain nor sorrow which makes one think thus, do not suppose it. I should tell you if it were; it is the home-sickness which takes hold of every soul that sets itself to thinking of heaven. The hour strikes, the last that I shall hear while writing to you. I would have it without end, like all that gives pleasure. How many hours have been marked by that old clock, that dear piece of furniture that has seen so many of us pass, without ever going away, like a kind of eternity! I am fond of it, because it has sounded all the hours of my life, the most beautiful when I did not listen to them. I can remember that my crib stood at its foot, and I used to amuse myself by watching the hands move. Time amuses us then; I was four years old.... My lamp is going out; I leave you. Thus ends my year, beside a dying lamp."

"The little Morvonnais, her mother tells me, sends me a kiss. What shall I give her in return for a thing so pure, so sweet as a child's kiss? It seems to me as if a lily had touched my cheek."

Glad would I run, my child, at thy soft call, Saying: "I love thee, I would like to kiss thee;" And when thy little arms, like two white wings, Thou openest wide to embrace me!

I have white lambs that often me caress, A dove as well lays on my lips its beak; But when a child doth give me soft embrace, 'Tis as a lily rested on my cheek;

Filling with balmy innocence my face, And making all my life more pure and mild; Pleasure ineffable, celestial grace! Who would not have thy kisses, blue-eyed child?

"A daughter ought to be so sweet a thing to her father! We should be to them almost as the angels are to God. Between brothers it is different; here there is less consideration and more freedom."

Under date May 13, 1837, she writes:--"A sorrow. We have got Trilby poorly--so ill that the poor beast will die. I was fond of my pretty little dog. I remember, too, that you used to be fond of her and to caress her, calling her _little rogue_. All kinds of memories attach themselves to Trilbette, and make me regret her. Small and great affections--everything leaves us and dies in its turn. The heart is like a tree surrounded with dead leaves....

"I have just had a young pigeon brought to me, which I am going to keep, and tame, and caress. It will replace Trilby. This poor heart always wants something to love; when it loses one object it takes another. I notice this, and that we keep loving without interruption, which shows our destination to eternal love. Nothing helps me better to understand heaven than to picture it to myself as the place of love; for if even here we cannot love for a moment without happiness, what will it be to love for ever?"

Maurice was, meanwhile, stung with the feeling that his life was a failure. He, indeed, resigned himself with a sense of hopeless indifference to his lot. It was in bitterness of soul, if with conscientious purpose, that he continued the monotonous, and to him uncongenial, task of teaching, when the bright dream of his youth had been so different--of poetry and literature, with his helpful sister Eugénie, if not a still dearer one, by his side. How different the stern reality! He reproached himself for his want of success. Entries in his journal at this time show the agony of soul of this sensitive plant, destined to live in the world's stony places. Here is one of June, 1835:--

"What makes me at times despair of myself is the intensity of my suffering for little things and the for-ever-blind and aimless purposes to which I put my moral powers. To stir a grain of sand I use energy that might suffice to force a stone up to the mountain-tops. I could better bear the heaviest burdens than this light, almost impalpable, dust that clings to me. I perish secretly day by day. Life escapes me by invisible stings. I am weary of what surrounds me. I know neither where I would live nor in what profession; but I detest mine, which is spoiling me and making me wretched. It upsets at every instant the little philosophy that I can glean in free and tranquil hours, and vexes me with men still children. How I hate myself in these miseries! How I long to spring upon some shore of liberty, pushing back with my foot the odious bark which has carried me."

During all this trying period the love of Eugénie for her brother did not wane, nor did her confidence in him, in his genius and ultimate success, become abated. Troubled as she herself was with mental conflicts, with a constitutional melancholy which made her peculiarly sensitive to the pangs of bereavement, to the sorrows of all around her, and all the weariness of daily life, she never forgot her brother. Her journal, written as it was to him, discloses a life of the most tender solicitude and most pathetic interest on the part of a sister towards a brother on record. She poured out to him her heart's most inmost feelings. If his correspondence flagged, she became anxious, and, as it has been seen, tenderly expostulated, lovingly upbraided, gently warned. A new source of anxiety to her at this time was what she conceived to be a growing indifference on the part of her brother to religion. It appears that Maurice had for a time lost the devotion of his youth. His brooding melancholy and want of success had so far embittered his spirit that a cold and cynical philosophy was fast taking the place of his early faith and love. His long silences troubled his sister, and she braced herself to helpful and loving counsel. Opening her journal almost at hazard, we find such entries as the following:--"When every one is occupied and I am not needed, I retreat early and come here to write, read, or pray. I put here both what passes in my soul and in the house, and in that way we shall find day by day all the past. For me it is nothing, and I would not write it, but I say to myself, 'Maurice will be very glad to see what we are doing whilst he is far away, and thus enter into the family life,' and I mark it for you."

Again, she writes: "I have just passed the night writing to you. The day has replaced the candle, so that it is hardly worth while to go to bed. Oh! if papa knew it! How quickly it has passed, my brother, this night spent in writing to you! The dawn appeared whilst I believed it midnight; it was past three o'clock, and I had seen many stars pass, for from my table I see the sky, and from time to time I look at it and consult it; and it seems to me that an angel dictates to me. From whence, except from above, can come to me so many things tender, ennobling, sweet, true, pure, with which my heart is filled as I speak to you? Yes, God gives me them, and I send them to you. May my letter do you good. It will come on Tuesday. I have written it to-night so that I can give it to the postman in the morning and save a day. I was so drawn to come to you to divert and strengthen you in the state of feebleness and weariness in which I see you. But I do not see it; I divine it after your letters, and some words of Felicité. Would to God I could see and know what torments you, then I should know where to apply the balm, whilst I now place it by chance. Oh! how I long for letters from you! Write to me; speak, explain, show yourself, that I may know what you suffer. Sometimes I think it is only a little of that black melancholy which we are both liable to, and which makes us so sad when it spreads in the heart."

The apparent indifference of her brother sometimes, indeed, caused Eugénie to neglect her journal and her correspondence. He endeavoured to bear his troubles as he did his poverty, in silence; and when he was unable for want of the necessary means to travel, to spend his vacations at Le Cayla, the real cause was unknown, and was not unnaturally attributed to a waning affection. A letter from Eugénie, after a visit to Rayssac, where she had last been with him four years before, contains some charming pictures:--

"_September 6th, 1836._

"It is a week since I came down from the mountains, quite sad, thinking of Louise, my heart full of our friendship, and with regrets for our separation. What it costs to go away from a friend, when we have found so much happiness together! To say adieu is a word that makes us weep, which kills. Fenelon is quite right in saying that friendship which makes much happiness for life, gives also inexpressible pain. We felt this, Louise and I. It is from their depth that the sweetest things of life have their bitterness. I learn it, I feel it continually more. What is to be done about it? To resign oneself, to habituate oneself to the course of the world which passes so changingly.

"My brother, I have thought of you everywhere among the mountains, under the linden trees, in the little salon, in the gallery, where they have made me read from your letters, those dear letters which M. de Bayne preserves with other precious papers. I believe you would give him much pleasure in sending him others from time to time, telling him now and then what passes in the literary world. This brave man especially loves you. The name 'M. Maurice' ought to be in his heart, for he has it often upon his lips. This affection ought to please you; I take pleasure in it, inasmuch as it apparently confers something upon me as your sister. In short, I know not why Mons. de Bayne treats me in so distinguished a manner. He used to come and talk with me of his great authors, of his great thoughts; we conversed about all kinds of books--history, philosophy, legends, poetry. That was a course of literary conversations for the evening, for it was in the evening that we talked, he in his armchair, the back to the window, I upon the large sofa, in the place marked by the countess; Leontine at the end, Louise upon a chair near me, and Criquet at her feet or on her lap. You should have seen also the round table with books, pamphlets, journals, stockings heaped up round the chandelier and below the shadow where the cricket used to come. It was the same as it was four years ago, except that you were not there. Louise is not at all changed. She has the same air of youth, the same gaiety, the same eye of fire. What a glance! I could wish that it had fallen upon Raphael. For myself, I have in my soul a charming tableau of it and a true one.

"I was cut off from it all at once by the arrival of Miou, my scholar, a little girl, sweet, pretty, and foolish according to papa, who does not like her slowness, which makes him judge sharply my poor _protégé_. A hail came the day before yesterday to carry off our grapes. It is a pity to see the poor bruised vines which promised an abundant harvest. They expected no less than seventy casks; rely upon nothing in this world!

"To-morrow we expect the Reynauds, great and small. Papa longs infinitely to embrace Auguste, his wife, and the children. I had this pleasure the first, on my way to Albi. Judge of the happiness, and how the friendship of Felicité was soon formed. The appearance of friends that we had at first sight surprised every one--those who knew not that we already knew each other in heart. I found our cousin good, simple, friendly, loving you much, which makes me love her not a little. We talked of you: Tell me about Maurice; what is he doing? Does he think about us? When will he at length come? I have many other questions to ask her, which I will do one of these days when I have more leisure. It rains, unfortunately, which will prevent our going out, and sitting under some oak tree, where it is good to tell our secrets.

"If we had you also, what happiness! Let us not think of it, since thinking of it only brings us more regrets. However, you remember that I wish for you, that we wish for you, next year. Arrange accordingly, or tell us that you do not wish to come. I see nothing that can detain you; but from now you have a year to prepare. Prepare, or rather present yourself without hesitation. A little courage, come; the courageous prevail. Think of the pleasure you will do us, of that you will give to papa, the dear father who loves you so much that we should be jealous, if we had not also our share of tenderness. The heart of a father is infinite."