“O Magali, when comes that day,
There in the holy place
Father Confessor will I be,
And hark to thee.”
“Pass but the gate, and in my stead
Thou wilt find, well-a-day!
The nuns all sadly busièd
Me in my shroud to lay.”
“O Magali, and if cold clay
Thou make thyself, and dead,
Earth I’ll become, and there thou’lt be,
At last, for me.”
“I half begin to think, in sooth,
Thou speakest earnestly!
Then take my ring of glass, fair youth,
In memory of me.”
“Thou healest me, O Magali!
And mark how, of a truth,
The stars, since thou did’st drop thy veil,
Have all grown pale!”
(Trans. Alma Strettell.)
It was in the autumn of this year 1855 that the first cloud overshadowed my happy youth. It was the sorrow of losing my father. He had become quite blind, and as far back as the previous Christmas we had been anxious about him. For on that occasion he whom the festival had always filled with joy, this year seemed overcome by a deep depression which we felt augured badly for the future. It was in vain that as usual we lit the three sacred candles and spread the table with the three white cloths; in vain that I offered him the mulled wine, hoping to hear from his lips the sacramental “Good cheer.” Groping, alas! with his long thin arms, he seated himself with never a word. In vain also my mother tried to tempt him with the dishes of Christmas, one after the other—the plate of snails, the fish of Martique, the almond nougat, the cake of oil. Wrapt in pensive thought the poor old man supped in silence. A shadow, a forerunner of death, was over him, and his blindness oppressed him. Once he looked up and spoke.
“Last year at Christmas I could still see the light of the candles; but this year, nothing, nothing. Help me, O blessed Virgin.”
In the first days of September he departed this life. Having received the last sacrament with sincerity and faith, the strong faith of simple souls, he turned to his family, who all stood weeping around his bed:
“Come, come, my children,” he said to us. “I am going—and to God I give thanks for all that I owe him: my long life and my labour, which He has blessed.”