“Oh! I know,” cried little Ernest, “a spectre is a ghost.”
“Indeed! and what is a ghost?”
“A spectre.”
“Bravo! you are quite capable of explaining the Apocalypse!”
“A spectre,” cried the little girl in her turn, “is a devil with a red tail and green horns, that comes at night and pulls naughty little children’s toes.”
That definition made Marguerite and me laugh; but I agreed that she would do well to scold the nurse for telling the children such tales. Young imaginations should never be terrified and darkened. The time when things cease to look rose-colored to us comes quickly enough.
We returned to the house talking of spectres. I kissed my children, who went off to bed; then I walked in the garden. It was a magnificent evening and seemed to me to invite one to breathe the cool, moist air. I soon found myself near the summer-house, which was not occupied. The moon was shining on that part of the garden; but its light always inclines one to melancholy. As I glanced at the clumps of trees about me, I remembered the spectre of which we had been talking, and although I am not a believer in ghosts, I realized that, by assisting one’s imagination a little, it was easy to see behind that foliage ghostly figures which moved with the faintest breeze.
I seated myself on a bench by the summer-house. The night was so soft and still that I did not think of returning to the house. The image of Caroline, the memory of Eugénie, presented themselves before my mind in turn. I sighed as I reflected that I must fly from the first because she loved me, and forget the other because she did not love me. But she was the mother of my children. They had spoken of her again that day, and had asked me if she would come home soon. I did not know what reply to make. Ernest and his wife never mentioned Eugénie, and their silence surprised and disquieted me. Not a word of her—nothing to tell me where she was, what she was doing, or if she were still alive. She was so changed, so ill, at Mont-d’Or! I would have liked to hear from her. I could not love her, but she would never be indifferent to me.
In these reflections I forgot the time. A sound quite near me caused me to raise my head. It was like a faint sigh. I saw nobody, so I stood up. It seemed to me that I could distinguish, through the leaves, something white running toward the other end of the garden. I remembered the spectre. My curiosity was aroused; I walked to the path where I thought that I had seen something; but I found nothing, and I decided to go to my room; for it was late and everybody else had already retired, no doubt.
I certainly did not believe in ghosts; but I recalled Madame Ernest’s impatience when the children mentioned the subject, and I suspected that there was some mystery at the bottom of it all. I determined to solve it, for something told me that I was interested in it.