The House by Henry Bordeaux

WHERE did grandfather go after bringing me back to the house? To the café, and one day he took me there.

I did not know precisely what a café was, and I was secretly afraid of it. Father used to speak of cafés in a tone of contempt which admitted no contradiction, no favourable reservation. When he said of any one, "he spends his time at the café," or "he is a pillar of the café," that some one was judged and condemned: he wasn't worth the rope to hang him. I could not have imagined my father entering one. Such audacity on the part of grandfather surprised me the less, since I had already noticed that in everything he took the opposite view from my father.

We went to the café instead of going to walk, one very warm morning; this seemed to me a sort of outrage, as we were doubly failing in the course marked out for us. Its name appeared in letters of gold, _Café of the Navigators_; the inscription being framed in with billiard cues. Pleasantly situated on the shore of the lake, it was composed of a long arbour whence one could see the port, and a great room whence one could see nothing. We chose the room; to me it seemed most luxurious because of its mirrors and white marble tables. Two or three groups were conversing, smoking, drinking, and I was at once nearly choked by a pungent odour of tobacco mingled with the perfume of anisette. Yet such was the attraction of the place that after having coughed I found the combination pleasant. We joined the least noisy group, who greeted grandfather with transports of delight, calling him familiarly _Father Rambert_:

Father Rambert here! -- Father Rambert there!

They installed him on the sofa, in the middle seat, and began by asking news of Mathieu de la Drôme. Grandfather replied that he was at "set fair" with a tendency to rise, and that favourable winds would probably keep him so; at which every one rejoiced, on account of the vines; the wine would be famous if Mathieu continued to behave well. Presently I perceived that the barometer was in question, and that grandfather was consulted as to the weather because of its prophecies. These gentlemen used among themselves a conventional language to which it was important to have the key, and which complicated the conversation so far as I was concerned. No one paid any attention to me, and I was still standing, vexed at this neglect, when I was suddenly addressed.

"Well, youngster, what will _you_ take?"

The appellative and the familiar tone completed my displeasure. I drew myself up, and put on a stern expression, but I remained "the youngster" to every one present. Grandfather with a detached air replied with majesty:

"A green."

"With white wine? " somebody asked.

"I am not a wine sack like you," retorted grandfather.

The reply was received with enthusiasm. At The House every one was particularly polite to a guest, but these gentlemen here laid aside all ceremony in their mutual relations. Meanwhile, the maid set before grandfather a number of things which she took one by one from a tray: a tall, deep glass, a little iron spade pierced with holes; a sugar bowl, a caraffe of water, and finally a bottle, the contents of which I could not guess. There was a deep silence and I received an impression of being present at a solemn rite, which no one might disturb. Decidedly their ways were all topsy-turvy: they treated one another without courtesy, but they venerated the drink.

Grandfather, his calm not in the least embarrassed by all the eyes fixed upon him, poured a quarter of a glass of liquid from the mysterious bottle, then placed the perforated spade across the glass and upon it two pieces of sugar in perfect equilibrium, moistened them drop by drop until they dissolved, after which he suddenly inclined the caraffe. A pleasant odour of anise caressed my nostrils. The mixture grew more clouded as the water fell, like those beautiful opaque clouds that lie along the horizon before the rain, and finally took on a pale green tint which I had never met in our walks. Immediately the talking began again: the operation was completed.

At my new guardian's order they brought "the youngster" a grenadine with a bottle of seltzer water. The rite observed in this case was shorter and not of sufficient importance to overcome the general indifference. The rival "green" enjoyed a particular celebrity. One discharge from the seltzer bottle into the syrup which was languishing in the bottom of the glass and my mixture rose up, frothy, boiling, tossing, first light rose colour, then, after the gases had been dissipated, a golden rose. What touched me most wets the straw that was given me for imbibing it from a distance: one had only to bend the head over and breathe it in.

Merely by that breath I was initiated into a higher form of existence. Perfectly happy, I felt a great desire to tell my neighbours so. They were sucking up divers concoctions. Most of them had kindly, rubicund faces, and eyes somewhat bleared. They too were all perfectly happy. Why had grandfather taught me that people in towns were not happy? To become so, all they had to do was to go to the café.