The abrupt end of my first love affair, that poor little minute in which it was given me to see Nazzarena in the sunlight—caused me a like amazement, a like discouragement. Day after day I had been building up within myself my love story, so vague at first and then so rich and serious, continually adding something to it—a smile, a word, a meeting, and even a bit of scoffing on her part; now it was admiration for her feats of horsewomanship—now that I had merely passed through the Market Square and seen her roulotte. She had filled a larger place in my life than I suspected, and now nothing more happened. This void, so new to me, was harder to bear than real pain. Unavailingly I tried to shake it off, for I could not as yet imagine how much of comfort one may have remembering things. How should I have known that it is possible to live outside of the present moment? All that was left to me of Nazzarena gone, Nazzarena forever lost, it was less the thought of her than an all pervading lassitude caused by her absence—a lassitude which was dear to me, in which I seemed to find her again, and which made me incapable of taking an interest in anything whatever.
This condition of mind prevented my paying much attention to the changes which were taking place at our house. I accommodated myself to them without effort and every one spoke of my yielding disposition. Since the tower scene a certain embarrassment had existed between my father and my grandfather, which only my mother’s tact rendered endurable to either. Though I had not been formally forbidden, I ceased to walk out with grandfather or even to go to his room. He would shut himself up a good part of the day to play on his violin. When we assembled at table he made no attempt to come near me,—it was as if he had entirely given up our intimacy. That seemed to me somewhat ungrateful, in view of the important part I had taken in defending him. Meal times became stupid. One held aloof, another was absorbed in thought. I understood that both of them, by a tacit understanding, had retired from the municipal campaign. No one dared to speak of the elections, which were close at hand, but the notices posted on the walls which I read on the way to school, told me how things were. Martinod’s name appeared, and even Galurin’s, but Pour-the-drink and the two artists had been left out. Aunt Deen talked to herself on the staircase of extraordinary events and horrible traitors. In the end Martinod had accomplished his purpose: the candidate whom he dreaded, the only one he dreaded, had refused to run.
I also understood that grandfather had not gone again to the Café of the Navigators, either by way of observing the truce, or to avoid entreaties to which he would doubtless have been inclined to yield. When he heard that father had been called to the bedside of Casenave, who was delirious, he seemed surprised and even moved; he had therefore not seen that old companion.
“Casenave ill!” he exclaimed. “He must have drunk too much.”
At luncheon father announced to us that Casenave was dead.
“I warned him,” he said. “He ought to have given up the bottle long ago.”
“He chose for himself,” said grandfather.
He chose for himself! That was enough to excuse and justify all actions, good or bad, and so I understood it. I saw a reply spring to my father’s lips, but he repressed it, and merely added:
“I have warned Tem Bossette. He will come to the same end, if he does not take care. It is already pretty late for him.”
“All of them drunkards,” summed up Aunt Deen, who liked to deal in generalities.