Cernay’s seclusion led me to frequent the park with the steward and Dilette. M. Mairieux, little by little, as he watched the child skipping ahead and then running back to us like a young greyhound travelling over the same road two or three times, fell into the habit of conjuring up before me an earlier childhood, that of his daughter. He never spoke to me of Mme. Cernay, but constantly of little Raymonde. I learned every detail of her life up to the age of fourteen or fifteen. Beyond that there was silence.
His memories kept time with Dilette’s actions. One morning, as she bent over a colchicum, he asked:
“Why don’t you pick it?”
“It is better there in the grass, grandpa,” she said.
This reply seemed to me to affect him beyond measure.
“Raymonde,” he explained, “loved flowers in the same way, and never plucked them. She thought them lovelier growing on their stems in the fields. No one could ever get a bouquet from her. It is odd, don’t you think?”
But the oddity brought tears to his eyes. At other times he spoke of other characteristics.
“I had taken her into the forest at sunset,” he said once. “How old was she? Probably Dilette’s age. The leaves were nearly all gone, it was this time of year. In front of us the tree trunks partly blocked our view of the sun’s red disc. She stretched her little arms towards the disappearing orb and when it had completely vanished, I found her dear face so sad that I began to apologise. ‘I can’t stop the sun, my darling,’ I said. ‘It is a great pity, grandpa,’ she replied with a sigh. Ah, it was a sigh that would break your heart! Would you believe it? That evening I envied Joshua. As a matter of fact, I had as good reason as he for working a miracle. The laughter of a little girl is the dew which refreshes our years. A child who does not laugh seems to be reproaching the one who gave it life.”
On this topic he was never silent; now, it was Raymonde’s inborn love for all things, or again, of her running along the forest paths and her abrupt halts, as if she saw some one coming, her charming combination of trust and fear.
“She was so timid, so shy,” he said, “that we even determined to send her to boarding school near by, in a convent in the city, in order that contact with companions might accustom her to everyday life. You have no idea of the ceremony that took place before she left. She wished to say good-bye to all the rooms in the house as if they were persons of flesh and blood, and to certain favoured trees and to Stop, the dog, and my horse, and the whole farmyard. She was not absent long. At the end of three days she ran away. She had to climb over a wall, topped with iron spikes. A little of her dress stayed there. Moreover she lost her hat and did not go back to look for it. In this condition she passed through the city somewhat ashamed of her appearance; and ran off at full speed from an old gentleman who began to question her. Once out in the country she was reassured. The city faces did not trouble her any more and those of the peasants gave her confidence, as though she were on familiar ground. So she came back to us on foot, just before nightfall. Have you noticed at the side of the gate a single birch, planted there by chance? It was much smaller then. Raymonde’s first act was to go to this friend and embrace it. From a distance I thought a little pauper girl was coming up the avenue. Stop was already licking her hands, and even her cheeks. And in this beggar I recognised my own daughter.”