The House by Henry Bordeaux

AFTER my long convalescence I did indeed return to school. It was an ancient institution in which kindly monks imparted antiquated instruction. It was possible to work there, when one's schoolfellows did not positively put obstacles in the way, but it was easier to devote oneself to clandestine industries, such as training flies and cockchafers, drawing caricatures, reading forbidden books, and even carrying on explorations through the passages. The discipline was no better than the teaching. Up to this time the idea had never occurred to me to view as a prison this great building with its numerous doors and windows where one came and went as one pleased under the paternal eye of a new porter, entirely absorbed in the care of his flowers and of a tortoise whose manners he was studying. But I was now new-born to the sentiment of liberty, and consequently to that of slavery. I made every effort therefore to discover that I was unhappy.

On holidays I resumed my walks with grandfather. An involuntary complicity established itself between us. If one or another of my brothers or sisters joined us we spoke only of indifferent things. When we were alone we went into rhapsodies over the joys of the fields and the brotherhood of men, only hindered by property with all its enclosures. I learned that money was the cause of all ills, that one should despise and do away with it, and that the only necessary good things cost nothing, namely, health, the sunlight, pure air, the songs of birds and all the pleasures of the eye. My teachers, who were much more interested in Latin than in philanthropy, neglected to teach me the latter except by their example, to which I paid no attention. No more towns, no more armies (and Bernard, who was preparing at Saint-Cyr, and who had never been informed of these truths! ), no more judges, no more lost lawsuits, no more houses. But here I thought that grandfather was going rather too far. No more houses! What about ours, then? Ours which had been repaired and all done over! It mattered little about the others, so long as ours was spared.

"Why no, little dunce; pastoral peoples used to sleep out of doors. It's more hygienic."

When Abraham journeyed to the land of Canaan he must have slept out of doors, and so must the shepherds whom we had met leading their flock to the mountains.

We made another pilgrimage to the pavilion which I had come to call Helen's pavilion, and from time to time we put in an appearance together at the Café of the Navigators, so that I did not entirely lose contact with my friends.

I was entering my fourteenth year, I think, or it may have been a little later, when our town became the scene of great events. The mayor's office was contested in an election, and the Marinetti Circus set up its tent and waggon-houses in the market-place. I do not know which of these two dissimilar facts seemed the more important to me.

At our house, in view of the new preoccupations as to our future, the tone of conversation became more serious. More than once I came upon our father and mother mysteriously discussing Mélanie's approaching majority.

"The time is coming," father would say. "I have promised and I shall keep my promise. But it will be hard."

And mother would answer,

"God wills it. He will give us the needful strength."

Nevertheless, she seemed less sad than father, when she spoke about my sister. What promise were they talking about, and what was it that God willed? I used often to think of the picture in the Bible representing the sacrifice of Isaac, but since the time of our missing church I was less inclined to believe that God was so very strict.

Mélanie went often to church, visited the poor, and dipped her brush in water every morning to smooth down her blond hair which curled naturally and refused to lie in straight bands. I knew these details through Aunt Deen, who was always saying:

"That child is an angel."

It had become impossible to quarrel with Mélanie. Our parents no longer gave her orders; they spoke to her gently, as if they were consulting her. Even I, without knowing why, dared not speak roughly to her, and growing less and less inclined to be respectful, I kept aloof from her, and no longer sought her company.

The others were not to return until the long vacation. Louise, from her boarding school in Lyons, wrote loving letters which I found somewhat silly, because they often alluded to religious ceremonies and visits of the Superior, or of some passing missionary. Bernard's letters briefly described the life at Saint-Cyr which he had just entered, and Stephen's contained numerous obscure allusions to his plans, which seemed to harmonise with those of Mélanie. I could not condescend so far as to play with the younger children, the delicate Nicola who was always disturbing mother while she was writing to the absent ones, and the tumultuous Jamie, in whose behalf I would cheerfully have seen the establishment of the severe discipline which I did not care about for myself. I treated them as from a higher level -- they could not understand me. So that my real comrade was grandfather.

Two or three times my father, displeased by my silences or my superior airs, observed in those family councils of which somehow children generally manage to catch scraps,

"That child is growing secretive."

Mother, still somewhat uneasy about me, did not protest, but Aunt Deen, fertile in excuses, would authoritatively affirm that I would blossom out before long. Far from being grateful to this steadfast ally, I laughed in my sleeve at her fanatical loyalty, by way of proving my superior intelligence.