Father, who seemed always to be glad of anything which might bring him and grandfather together, heightened the reluctant admission into praise.
“Yes, François owes his health to you. And all these lovely walks that you are giving him will attach him the more firmly to the region in which he is to live, and which he will know the better because of them.”
As a matter of fact I felt myself entirely aloof from the region and even from our house. What I loved was the earth, the vast unnamed earth, and not this place or that; most of all I loved the uncultivated places, the wild places in the woods, the copses, the secret nooks, and in less degree the pasture lands, any untilled, unsowed: bit of earth. In the matter of people, I had accepted grandfather’s new gospel which catalogued them as peasants and towns people. The nice people were in the country, whereas towns were inhabited by wicked individuals and notably by bourgeois, who persecute men of genius like my friends of the café. And in the towns were the schools where you were reduced to a state of slavery.
While I was giving myself up to these reflections my mother’s gaze had fallen upon me; it seemed to me that she was reading my thoughts, and I blushed—a proof that I was not unaware of my inward insubordination.
“He has grown quite robust,” she said. “Could he not begin gradually to take up his lessons? We could arrange him a place in the garden, where he would be in the out-door air, and yet not be entirely idle. Idleness is never good.”
I was astounded to hear my mother uttering so direful a proposition—my mother, so careful to spare me all fatigue, so expert in nursing me, so minute in her watchfulness! Decidedly, they had changed parts; father had appeared suspicious of my walks with grandfather, and now he was not only authorising, he was encouraging them.
“No, no,” he exclaimed, “pleurisy is too grave a matter. He would still risk losing strength and colour. See how well he looks now!” adding aside to mother, “Father is so happy in his little companion! Since he has had charge of him he has quite changed and grown younger. Haven’t you noticed it?”
Mother, who always agreed with him, did not express her opinion. I divined that she was uneasy about me, but why? Had she not rejoiced in my good spirits and my round, rosy cheeks? Grandfather never attempted to monopolise me; he took me on his walks, and helped in that way, and in addition, he taught me a thousand things about trees, mushrooms, botany: the things he knew were much more interesting than the history, geography and catechism that my teachers used to teach me.
Now that my attention had been attracted to mother’s uneasiness I continually noticed that she was always following me like a shadow. At the bottom of my heart I was pleased. Even a child loves to inspire fear in those who love him; it puts him at a sort of vantage point, gives him a feeling as of being a man, and understanding life better than a weak woman can do.
One day mother was talking in her room with Aunt Deen. I heard only the reply of the latter, who never could conceal anything.