“Oho!” said grandfather lightly, “he has enough to give orders to now.”
Grandfather climbed into the vehicle first, with his instruments, which he would not let go, though the violin case was much in the way. Like little Jamie, he had all the gaiety of a school boy on vacation. Never had he seemed so to feel the attractions of the Alpette. Louise, on the contrary, and Nicola, imitating her sister, whom she admired, manifested an emotion which for my part I deemed excessive. They clung to our parents with tears, as if it were a case of prolonged absence.
“Come, children,” said father, “make haste and have no fears.”
My own adieus to him were of marked coldness, because of the scene of the previous day. He had constrained me to obedience, and had wounded my pride; I could not forget it so soon; dignity obliged me to assume an offended air.
The smallest details of that departure, upon which my memory has dwelt so much, vainly seeking something to mitigate its bitterness, stand out before me with a distinctness which time has never blurred. Every one was more or less impatient, the horses because of the flies that tormented them, the coachman out of compassion for his cattle, grandfather and Jamie in their haste to enjoy the pleasures of the journey, Louise and Nicola in their sadness over going away, Aunt Deen because she dreaded the tumult of her feelings, and I, to get rid of the uneasiness that was overcoming me. Mother was trying to keep calm. Father alone did so, naturally. When my turn came to get in, last of all, he seemed to hesitate for a brief moment as if he would have detained me, spoken to me. I do not precisely know what it was that showed me this, but I am sure of it. And once in my seat I felt an unreasoning desire to get out again. Was it an instinctive longing for reconciliation? How I long to feel sure that it was! But the feeling was too vague for me to be sure of it now. Taking my place on the same seat with grandfather, I gave expression to my inward feeling by an act of ill humour, seizing hold of the violin case, which chafed my knees, and laying it roughly in the bottom of the carriage.
“Be careful! It’s delicate,” observed grandfather protestingly.
I can still see the vibrating light in the air, and the shining of the road in the sunlight.
“All right?” asked the coachman, clambering to his seat.
“Forward!” ordered father.
And mother added the prayer that she always uttered at each parting.