See us dancing up and down.’
you know the children’s song. It was really awful to see such madness, and yet it was a kind of contagion. I’ll bet you would have danced yourself if you had been there, to see what a blaze your shop made with all the dry wood you had in it.”
“I wish I had been there,” said I. “It must have been a grand sight.”
And the funny part of it was that I really did think so. I thought something else too: that this time I was ruined; but wild horses would not have dragged it out of me before Jojot. He was puzzled, and looked as if he did not know what to make of me, half with that queer pleasure we have in the misfortunes of our fellow-man, and half with pity, for he is really a good sort, and a friend of mine. I turned to go.
“They ought to have kept a thing like that for the midsummer bonfire,” said I.
“Are you really going on?”
“Yes, I’m going on, Jojot.”
“Well, you’re an odd fish—you do hate to be like other people.” And he whipped up his horse and drove off down the hill, while I stepped out bravely in the opposite direction as long as he was in sight; but as soon as I got round the corner, my knees seemed to give way under me, and I let myself fall like a lump by the roadside.
The next moments were among the worst that I have ever had to bear, and as there was nobody to see me, I just let myself go, and bewailed my misfortune.
“I have lost everything in the world,” thought I. My home,—the house was full of dear memories,—and the hope of ever having another of my own; all my savings, which it took me years to get together, bit by bit, and which were so much the more valuable to me, and worst of all, my independence is gone; for now of course, I shall have to live with one of my children, and I don’t know which of us will hate it the most. It is the one thing I have always been resolved against, as the worst that could happen. There is no use telling me that I love them, and they love me,—I know all that, but young people and old interfere with each other, and it is natural and proper for a bird to sit on its own nest, and hatch out its own eggs in its own way. Respect for the old is all very well, or rather it makes a difficulty, for you are not on an equality with people when you are obliged to show them respect. I have tried to behave so that my five children should not have too much respect for me, and I think I have succeeded pretty well, but there must always be a distance between us. Parents come and go in their children’s lives, like strangers from a far country; there can never be perfect understanding from one generation to another, and too often there is, on the contrary, interference and irritation.