“The moment has come, to speak to you of my uncle, my father’s brother. This brother, who was older than my father by about ten years, was a retired officer. What a wonderful man he was too! It seems to me that I had known only great and heroic people, in my childhood. It was hardly possible to turn out badly, in the midst of such fine beings. What is good in me, I owe altogether to them. My uncle had traveled extensively. He had taken part in all the campaigns of the first Republic, and of the First Empire, and had brought back from them a love of flowers which you may explain as best you can. He loved the land as much as my father loved the sea, but only for the purpose of covering it with flowers. He possessed a charmingly situated property, on the outskirts of the town, where he cultivated, with excessive care, a magnificent collection of roses, celebrated throughout the entire horticultural world. This collection contained more than four thousand varieties: I repeat, four thousand, catalogued, numbered, each with a name and a history. Certain people pretend to tell them apart at a glance, but I must say it was easier to confound them in an equal degree of admiration. I should have felt unjust in preferring one to another, and I admitted a difference in them only in their colors. My father called his brother’s place ‘the Garden of Roses.’ The Garden of Roses was for me the only serious rival of the court of aunt Marie’s hospital, and do you know why? Not because it was sweeter smelling, and richer in flowers than any place I have ever seen elsewhere; not because I always brought back beautiful bouquets for my mother, for aunt Marie and for her chapel; not because it was bordered on one entire side by a pretty little river, but because upon that river my uncle Antoine, out of honor for his brother, the sailor, kept a small, but very attractive looking, boat. In this boat, which appeared immense to me, my father used to take me on short voyages, not in the water, but on the water, which frightened me so much. When I was navigating on the little stream, how many times have I imagined that I was on the ocean, en route for America, India, the North Pole, or the Island of Robinson Crusoe.
“At the time of which I speak, my father, after a year passed upon the seas of China, returned to spend a three months’ holiday with us. I felt that I must make the most of it. The year before, I had been delighted to go with him on many little expeditions, both by land and water. But this year, alas! I expected little pleasure on the latter. One of the first questions he asked was whether I was still afraid of my old enemy. I was obliged to confess that I still felt the same in regard to it.
“‘What! But how old are you?’
“Brother,’ said aunt Marie, ‘he was just six years old when you left us.’
“‘But according to that your pupil is now seven.’
“‘Yes, papa, seven,’ said I. ‘I am getting to be a big boy.’
“‘Big! Yes, that is possible. But the larger you are, my poor Jacques, the less excuse you have for not knowing how to swim, for having fear of the water.’
“‘He has tried,’ interposed my aunt. ‘I had uncle Antoine’s gardener, who is an excellent swimmer, give him a lesson in the river, but he came out so blue with cold that I dared not let him go back again. Although he neither cried nor complained, I am certain he would have died in less than five minutes.’
“‘You believe that, perhaps, my poor dear sister,’ replied my father. ‘It is, however, an experience which he will have to repeat. But I warn Jacques that in the meantime, or until he is able to swim, at least a few feet, there will no longer be a boat for him at the “Garden of Roses.” The St. Jacques (which was the name given in my honor to my uncle’s boat)—the St. Jacques must remain at anchor.’