“Come, come! my poor Valentine; don’t you go to troubling your head about that good-for-nothing boy. In the first place, I know perfectly what those two talk to one another about—country things, the pleasures of the fields, the peace of the earth, the goodness of the animals; all humbug, to be sure, but what of that? It’s just like poultices,—it can’t do any harm.”
I had not the slightest doubt that they were talking of me, and I was not at all displeased at having my share in the family interest, for in these days there was a great deal of discussion about my brothers, who, having graduated from school, would start for Paris in the autumn, Bernard for the military school at Saint-Cyr, and Stephen, who was not yet sixteen, to complete his studies in mathematics, unless indeed he persisted in wishing to enter the Seminary. Aunt Deen was greatly distressed over the exorbitant cost of board and outfit, and was continually discanting with emotion upon the merits of our parents, who shrank from no financial sacrifice to complete our education.
“Aha!” sneered grandfather. “These great religious institutions don’t take in a pupil for nothing. They bleed their patrons at all four veins for the love of God.”
Furthermore, it was arranged that Louise was to go for two or three years to the convent school of the Ladies of the Retreat at Lyons. She would sober down there, and when she came home she would be an accomplished young lady, like Mélanie, who at that time was in the very flower of her youth—Mélanie, who long ago had invited me to sing vespers before a wardrobe, or to run after Yes-Yes, the drunkard, with a glass of water, and whose persistent piety foreshadowed a vocation which she had professed as a child, but concerning which she was now silent, unless, perhaps, to our mother.
Altogether the future of the family now demanded much reflection and many decisions. Grandfather and I remained quite apart from it all. Once beyond the gate we never looked back, except when my companion, laughing derisively, would say:
“And as to you, boy; what is being cooked up for you? Are you still inclined to enter the school of adversity?”
There had been much pleasantry over that incident, and I found it by no means amusing. I had given up all my fine plans, and had no thought of commanding some brilliant situation like my brothers. I was content with the sort of property which one enjoys without ever taking trouble, after grandfather’s fashion,—the lake, the forest, the mountain; not to speak of the stars and those fine July nights. I am not even sure that I did not prefer to them all the red benches of the Café of the Navigators, when I had the feeling of being a man, admitted to hear utterances concerning painting, music and politics.
Yet I never ceased to feel my mother’s gaze resting upon me. By way of not acknowledging it I began to put on airs of independence. Like the “Scenes in Animal Life,” I would work up offensive resemblances for all the people with whom we were familiar; turning men and things to ridicule and even affecting when with my brothers and sisters an incurious air, as if I had formed my views of life and had nothing more to learn. By a singular phenomenon, as I now see clearly, the more deeply I was initiated into the simplicity of rural life and the benevolence of nature the more complicated I became. And always, through all my newly assumed ways, that gaze followed me, as if it were seeking my heart.
Grandfather and I had a fright one day when we came upon my mother in the street. She was going to church for benediction and we to the café for our pleasure. She so rarely left the house that we had never thought of meeting her. Noses in air, already inhaling the special odour of tobacco and anise which awaited us, we paid no attention to the woman who was approaching, so modest, so grave that no one thought of looking at her, and we were much surprised when she accosted us, asking,
“Where are you going?”