And father would express his gratitude for my recovered health, Aunt Deen would declare that I no longer had my papier-mâché face, and would rub my cheeks to make them redder. My mother saw in grandfather’s affection a guarantee of peace and reconciliation. As for me, life had been insensibly changed. School, lessons, emulation, regular hours, work—all that no longer existed. I had only to turn my back upon the town and give myself up to lovely nature. I felt that, though I cannot explain it, at once clearly and confusedly: confusedly in my mind and clearly as a matter of practice.
And yet, on our return from our walks, grandfather would pretty often simply bring me back as far as the gate, and slip away in the direction of the accursed city.
IV
THE CAFÉ OF THE NAVIGATORS
WHERE did grandfather go after bringing me back to the house? To the café, and one day he took me there.
I did not know precisely what a café was, and I was secretly afraid of it. Father used to speak of cafés in a tone of contempt which admitted no contradiction, no favourable reservation. When he said of any one, “he spends his time at the café,” or “he is a pillar of the café,” that some one was judged and condemned: he wasn’t worth the rope to hang him. I could not have imagined my father entering one. Such audacity on the part of grandfather surprised me the less, since I had already noticed that in everything he took the opposite view from my father.
We went to the café instead of going to walk, one very warm morning; this seemed to me a sort of outrage, as we were doubly failing in the course marked out for us. Its name appeared in letters of gold, Café of the Navigators; the inscription being framed in with billiard cues. Pleasantly situated on the shore of the lake, it was composed of a long arbour whence one could see the port, and a great room whence one could see nothing. We chose the room; to me it seemed most luxurious because of its mirrors and white marble tables. Two or three groups were conversing, smoking, drinking, and I was at once nearly choked by a pungent odour of tobacco mingled with the perfume of anisette. Yet such was the attraction of the place that after having coughed I found the combination pleasant. We joined the least noisy group, who greeted grandfather with transports of delight, calling him familiarly Father Rambert:
Father Rambert here!—Father Rambert there!
They installed him on the sofa, in the middle seat, and began by asking news of Mathieu de la Drôme. Grandfather replied that he was at “set fair” with a tendency to rise, and that favourable winds would probably keep him so; at which every one rejoiced, on account of the vines; the wine would be famous if Mathieu continued to behave well. Presently I perceived that the barometer was in question, and that grandfather was consulted as to the weather because of its prophecies. These gentlemen used among themselves a conventional language to which it was important to have the key, and which complicated the conversation so far as I was concerned. No one paid any attention to me, and I was still standing, vexed at this neglect, when I was suddenly addressed.
“Well, youngster, what will you take?”
The appellative and the familiar tone completed my displeasure. I drew myself up, and put on a stern expression, but I remained “the youngster” to every one present. Grandfather with a detached air replied with majesty: