On this 4th of October my nurse Arthémise called me “miss” for the first time. I can hear her even now. On that day, the first that stands out distinct in my memory, everyone who saw me kissed me. I returned my grandparents’ caresses, hanging on their necks, but I remember perfectly that a number of persons made me angry by kissing me too hard. However, I allowed myself to be embraced rapturously by my nurse Arthémise, who wished to “eat me up,” as she said, and also by my great friend Charles,[A] who called me his “little wife.”
I told him with a dignified air that now, being three years old, he must call me his “big wife,” which he did at once, presenting me with a trumpet, on which I began to play with all my might.
My grandparents were expecting my mother and father to dine. They always arrived late, because the road across the Manicamp prairie was so bad that they related this story to children about it: “One day a cowkeeper lost a cow in one of the ruts, and he tried to find it by plunging the handle of his whip in the mud, but he could not succeed.”
One should hear this story in Picard patois, which gives a singular force to the words, especially when the cowkeeper turns his whip-handle in the mud and cannot feel the cow, so deeply is she buried in it.
I ran every few minutes to the front door and leaned out. I was a little afraid, for the entrance, with its four steps, seemed very high to me, but I thought I should be very useful to the kitchen-folk if I could be the first to cry out: “Here they are! here they are!”
I ran about a great deal, I even fell once, to Arthémise’s great alarm, who feared I should spoil my pretty gown.
At last my parents arrived from Blérancourt.
They told a long story which I have forgotten. The cabriolet and the horse were covered with mud. Papa and mamma repeated that the road was execrable. The word struck me and I used it for a long while on all occasions.
My mother wore a dark blue silk gown, caught up under her shawl. I can see her now, undoing her skirt and shaking it. I helped her by tapping on the silk and I said admiringly: “Mamma is beautiful!”
My father took me in his arms and covered me with kisses, and he also said “that I was very, very tall, and that he had not seen me for a long time—not for three months.” That was the same number as my age, it must therefore be a long time, and papa looked so sad that he made me feel like crying. His own eyes were full of tears.