Give your imagination to the interior of a family where such sentiments prevail; one sees marvellous things, that no painter can paint in colors true enough to render public. O pure and holy family joys! If we hesitate to describe you, it is from respect. We know with what discretion we should touch on holy things, and we hardly dare to make ourselves understood, to those who are fathers, by sketching the scenes of these first years of childhood between Master Swibert and his daughter.
VII.
Night has come; the child is going to sleep. Her father, pursuing his studies, is seated at the piano near the little being who has all his heart, and is now his inspiration; the waves of harmony go out into the night, white apparitions encircle the cradle, graze the earth, and fly away. The child sleeps.
Attentive and listening, her angel looks at her, opening slightly its wings to better protect her, and throwing over her closed eye-lids the bluish and transparent veil. The little face smiles sweetly.
In the morning she awakes, her soul filled with the joys of the night. She hears the birds sing, and the bright morning sun with heavenly rays gilds the cover of her little bed. She watches it play on her white curtains and turns toward her father, her eyes filled with tears, a weight on her heart. "Why do you weep, my daughter?" "Because, my father, I love you dearly, and I am too happy."
Yes, well may we discuss the joys of childhood. To sing them, poets lose their breath; to paint them, exhaust the colors of their palettes; and heap image upon image as their heated fancies may suggest, yet what have they done? Nothing. Yet the subject is worth their study. And how is it that there are so many who have known these joys in all their purity, who in their manhood gaze on into the future, and so seldom look to that past which made them so happy? Would they not, at times, give worlds to be again that little child at its mother's knee?
VIII.
Paganina was nearly seven years old, when she found a companion; the organist's sister died, leaving her only child to the care of her brother.
The little boy, named André, seemed to be of a gentle and even weak character. He was the same age as his cousin, but never was presented a more perfect contrast.