One night, when I was lying thus upon her bed, in the dark, and calling for her, I felt all at once the clutch of a strong hand upon my shoulder. It terrified me unspeakably. My heart gave a great jump, and stopped its beating. My limbs trembled, and a cold sweat broke out all over my body. I could not see six inches before my face. Who, or rather what, could my invisible captor be? Some grim and fearful monster of the darkness? A giant—a vampire—an ogre—or, at the very least, a burglar! All this flashed through my mind in a fraction of a second. Then I heard the voice of my Uncle Peter: “What do you mean, you young beggar, by raising such a hullaballoo at this hour of the night, and waking people up? Get off to your bed now, and in the morning I'll talk to you.” And though I suspected that “I'll talk to you” signified “I'll give you a good sound thrashing,” I could have hugged my Uncle Peter, so great was my relief to find that it was he, and no one worse.
Surely enough, next morning after breakfast, he led me to his room, and there he administered to me one of the most thorough and energetic thrashings I ever received from him. But now I had nobody to pet me and make much of me after it; and all that day I felt the awful friendlessness of my position more keenly than I had ever felt it before.
“I have but one friend in the whole world,” I thought, “and he is so far, so far away. If I could only somehow get across the ocean, to France, to Paris, to his house, and live with him! He would be so good to me, and I should be so happy!” And I looked up at his sword hanging upon my wall, and longed for the hour when I should touch the hand that had once wielded it.
I must not forget to tell you here of a little correspondence that I had with this distant friend of mine. A day or two after the funeral I approached my Uncle Peter, and, summoning all my courage, inquired, “Are you going to write to Uncle Florimond, and let him know?”
“What?” he asked, as if he had not heard, though I had spoken quite distinctly. That was one of his disagreeable, disconcerting ways—to make you repeat whatever you had to say. It always put me out of countenance, and made me feel foolish and embarrassed.
“I wanted to know whether you were going to write and tell Uncle Florimond,” I explained with a quavering voice.
By way of retort, he half-shut his eyes, and gave me a queer, quizzical glance, which seemed to be partly a sneer, and partly a threat. He kept it up for a minute or two, and then he turned his back upon me, and went off whistling. This I took to be as good as “No” to my question. “Yet,” I reflected, “somebody ought to write and tell him. It is only fair to let him know.” And I determined that I would do so myself; and I did. I wrote him a letter; and then I rewrote it; and then I copied it; and then I copied it again; and at last I dropped my final copy into the post-box.
About five weeks later I got an answer from him. In a few simple sentences he expressed his great sorrow; and then he went on: “And, now, my dear little nephew, by this mutual loss thou and I are brought closer together; and by a more tender mutual affection we must try to comfort and console each other. For my part, I open to thee that place in my heart left vacant by the death of my sainted sister; and I dare to hope that thou wilt transfer to me something of thy love for her. I attend with impatience the day of our meeting, which, I tell myself, if the Lord spares our lives, must arrive as soon as thou art big enough to leave thy home and come to me in France. Meanwhile, may the good God keep and bless thee, shall be the constant prayer of thy Uncle de la Bourbonnaye.”
This letter touched me very deeply.
After reading it I came nearer to feeling really happy than I had come at any time before since she died.