“You are carrying out your own idea. You are right. Till we meet again, then, in the valley of Jehoshaphat.”
He showed himself no more moved over me.
“Well, well, my boy; may Paris be good to you!”
We went out together, last of all. Mélanie kissed old Mariette, who murmured, “Can it be possible!” and stepped across the threshold. Twice she turned again toward the house, and the second time she made the sign of the cross. We could hear Aunt Deen’s cries from her closed room.
We were too early at the station, and had to drag out the time in the waiting-room and on the platform. Father busied himself with the tickets and the baggage. A few family friends who had come to bid us good-bye joined us with doleful faces and words of sympathy. Thus we had to endure Mlle Tapinois,—whom I could never think of except in her night dress with a candle in her hand, since I had recognised her in the aged dove in “Scenes of Animal Life”—and Abbé Heurtevant, who since the death of his monarch had grown bent, and could predict nothing but misfortune. Nothing could take place in our town without the whole population mixing in. Marriage, departure or death, the public claimed its share. Mother was politely thanking all these people whose presence so distressed her—she would fain have been alone with her daughter, and I could see that she was enduring martyrdom. The last moments of our being together were flying. Louise, Nicola and James clung to Mélanie—Bernard was trying to brighten the conversation, but his pleasantries fell wide of the mark. As for Stephen, absorbed, he was doubtless thinking that it would soon be his turn, or perhaps he was praying.
When the moment came, mother wanted to be the last to say good-bye; she clasped her daughter to her breast without a word, then, relinquishing her hold she whispered low,
“My child, I bless thee.”
I was beside her, waiting for my turn to say good-bye. I used to imagine to myself a parent’s blessing as a solemn act, such as I had seen it in pictures; but here it was given in the twinkling of an eye, and without so much as the lifting of a hand.
But for the demonstrations of Mlle Tapinois, the abbé and several other persons who made a point of uttering memorable words, one might have thought that ours was just any ordinary going away. The train started. Having got in last, I was nearest the door. My father invited me to give that place to my sister. The invitation wounded me, for it sounded too much like an order. Of course I ought to have thought first of getting out of the way.
Mélanie extended her head from the window with no heed to the falling rain. She waved her arm—then as the train rounded a curve she turned back to the compartment with red eyes, but only to hasten to the other window. I knew that she was looking for the house, which was visible from that side. After that she sat down covering her face with her hands. As she remained thus, without moving, father gently took her in his arms.