And then a meadow full of long, deep grass and summer flowers, and I—industriously picking buttercups into a tiny petticoat to take to cook, "to make the butter with," I said.
And then a table spread for tea. Our nurses, my two brothers, and myself. Angry words and screaming baby voices, a knife thrown by my little brother. Rage and hate.
And then a wedding, and I a bridesmaid, aged five years—the church, the altar, and great awe, and afterwards a long white table, white flowers, and a white Bride. Grown men on either side of me—smilingly delightful, tempting me with sweets and cakes and wine, and a new strange interest rising in me like a little flood of exultation—the joy of the world, and the first faint breath of the mystery of sex.
Then came winters of travel. Sunshine and mimosa, olive trees against an azure sky. Climbing winding, stony paths between green terraces, tulips and anemones and vines; white sunny walls and lizards; green frogs and deep wells fringed around with maidenhair. Mountains and a sea of lapis blue, and early in the mornings from this lapis lake a great red sun would rise upon a sky of molten gold. In the rooms so near me were my darling brothers, from whom I often had to part. Beauty and Joy, and Love and Pain—these made up life.
At ten I twice narrowly escaped death. From Paris we were to take the second or later half of the train to Marseilles. Late the night before my father suddenly said, "I have changed my mind; I feel we must go by the first train." This was with some difficulty arranged.
On reaching an immense bridge across a deep ravine I suddenly became acutely aware that the bridge was about to give way. In a terrible state of alarm I called out this fearful fact to my family. I burst into tears. I suffered agonies. My mother scolded me, and when we safely reached the other side of the bridge I was severely taken to task for my behaviour. The bridge broke with the next train over it—the train in which we should have been. Some four hundred people perished. It was the most terrible railway disaster that had ever occurred in France.
A few weeks later, death came nearer still. Having escaped from our tutor, with a party of other children we ran to two great reservoirs to fish for frogs. Laughing and talking and full of childish joy, we fished there for an hour, when all at once I was impelled, under an extraordinary sense of pressure, to call out, "If anyone falls into the water, no one must jump in to save them, but must immediately run to those long sticks" (I had never noticed them until I spoke) "and draw one out and hold it to whoever has fallen in." I spoke automatically, and felt as much surprised as my companions that I should speak of such a thing.
Within five minutes I had fallen in myself. My brother remembered my words, but before he could reach me with the stick I was under the water for the third and last time. It was all that they could do to drag my weight up to the ledge, for the water was a yard below it. Had my brother jumped in, as he said he most surely would have done had I not forewarned him, we must both have been drowned, for they would have had neither the strength nor the time to pull us both out alive. I was not at all frightened or upset till I heard someone say that I was dead; then I wept—it was so sad to be dead! The pressure put upon me to speak as I did had been so great that I have never forgotten the strange impression of it to this day. On both these occasions I consider that I was under immediate Divine protection.
I believed earnestly in God with the complete and peaceful faith of childhood. I thought of Him, and was afraid: but more afraid of a great Angel who stood with pen and book in hand and wrote down all my sins. This terrible Angel was a great reality to me. I prayed diligently for those I loved. Sometimes I forgot a name: then I would have to get out of bed and add it to my prayer. As I grew older, if the weather were cold I did not pray upon the floor but from my bed, because it was more comfortable. I was not always sure if this were quite right, but I could not concentrate my mind on God if my body was cold, because then I could not forget my body.
I saw God very plainly when I shut my eyes! He was a White Figure in white robes on a white throne, amongst the clouds. He heard my prayers as easily as I saw His robes. He was by no means very far away, though sometimes He was further than at others. He took the trouble to make everything very beautiful: and He could not bear sinful children. The Angel with the Book read out to Him my faults in the evenings.