Now, so late, I realise that all he was saying to convince me, to awaken in me an emotion which should free me from my bonds, must have been as noble as a Homeric song. Even then I had some inward intuition of it. I do not know if ever more eloquent words were uttered than those he spoke to me upon that hilltop, while evening was slowly beginning to paint the sky and breathe peace upon the earth. I can find no other words to express it,—he was paying court to me like a lover who feels that he is not loved, who yet knows that his love alone can bestow happiness. The affection of a father descends, calls to ours to rise to it; but his, by a unique privilege which in no sense lowered its pride, rose to me, enveloped me, implored me.
Yes, I really believe that my father was imploring me, and I remained apparently unmoved while I should have interrupted him with a cry in which my whole being was outpoured. Yet I was not in fact unmoved. There was too much pathos in the tone of his voice not to thrill through my early awakened sensibility. But by a singular inconsistency, that in me which was moved by his voice was precisely the very desire, all the desires, that he was trying to eradicate from my heart. That voice was chanting the stones of the house that had been built to triumph over time, the shelter of the roof, the unity of the family, the strength of the race which maintains itself upon the soil, the peace of the dead whom God has in his keeping. And while this canticle was thus making melody I was distinctly hearing another, sung for me alone by the music of the vagabond wind, the immensity of unknown spaces, the words of the shepherd on his way to the mountain; the apple blossoms showered upon my face the first day of my love, and Nazzarena’s laugh, and the hopeless shadow of the chestnut tree under which she had passed.
For one moment my father thought that he had conquered. His piercing eyes, always studying me, discerned my emotion. An impulse of sincerity moved me to turn away without speaking, and he understood that I was far from him. His voice ceased. Surprised by the sudden silence I looked at him in my turn, and I saw sadness sweeping over him like a shadow, that heart-breaking shadow that rises from the hollows of the valleys and slowly climbs the mountains as night draws on.
... Father, now I can interpret your sadness. Alone I have once more made the pilgrimage of Malpas, and alone there, I could understand you better. You were thinking of your two elder sons, who, burning with sacrifice, would soon be far away, for the service of God and of the fatherland. You were thinking of your dear Mélanie, who, drawn by the severe serenity of the cloister, was awaiting the hour of her majority. The main branches of the tree of life that you had planted were detaching themselves from the trunk. You had been counting upon me to continue your work and I was escaping you. By yourself alone you had sustained the tottering house, and the house, overwhelming you with labours and cares, was separating your own from you. It is the penalty of material necessities,—they do not leave time enough for the guardianship of souls. But you were thinking of triumphing over time by the mere power of your virile love for me, and your eloquence. In one walk, one conversation, you had hoped to regain the ground you had lost, without violating the respect due to your father. The heart of a child of fourteen years is an obscure heart, especially when love has entered it too soon. I did feel the importance of what you were teaching me, and yet I was considering how to shake it off. The less clearly I understood the word liberty, the more it fascinated and drew me. All the music to which I was listening was the music that it made....
My father’s disappointment found expression in a gesture. Grieved at his inability to win me he suddenly seized me by the two arms as if to lift me from the ground, and prove that he possessed me.
“Oh, understand me, poor child,” he exclaimed. “You must indeed understand me. Your whole future depends upon it.”
“Father, you hurt,” was my only reply.
I lied, for his grasp had merely surprised me. He tried to make light of it.
“Oh, come, that’s not true! I didn’t hurt you in the least.”
“Yes, you did,” I insisted with temper.