The House by Henry Bordeaux

DURING my long convalescence, as I was not permitted to read all the time, I had constructed, with the aid of Aunt Deen, who used patiently to put on her glasses, which she was not fond of wearing, in order to be more accurate in the use of her big scissors, which sometimes gave an unlucky slip in the cardboard -- all sorts of edifices, châteaux, farmhouses, cottages, and even cathedrals. I used to set them up on a great table which had been appropriated to me. The whole represented to my mind a town which my lead soldiers were to besiege. These soldiers, some of them a legacy from my brother Bernard, who even as a small child had begun to make a collection of uniforms, others which had been brought to me some Christmas Eve by the war-like Little Jesus, were innumerable; there were whole regiments of them, large and tiny, thin and plump, infantry, cavalry and artillery. Among the cavalry some were of one piece with their horses, others were detachable, a sharp pointed appendix in their rear permitting them to be fixed at will upon the perforated backs of their horses. One evening there was a tragic assault. The detached general (he was one of those provided with an appendix) had been the first to enter the breach, after which he remounted his chestnut charger, which had been by I know not what subterfuge hoisted into the interior. In the excitement of victory I set fire to the four corners of the conquered city, and when I sought to check its ravages it was too late. In another minute the fire had consumed everything, and all those houses that had cost me so many weeks' work, and upon which I had so prided myself, were only a heap of black ashes. I was severely reprimanded for having so nearly burned the furniture, and yet I just sat there in stupefied amazement at the rapidity of the burning, compared with the time it had taken me to build.

The abrupt end of my first love affair, that poor little minute in which it was given me to see Nazzarena in the sunlight -- caused me a like amazement, a like discouragement. Day after day I had been building up within myself my love story, so vague at first and then so rich and serious, continually adding something to it -- a smile, a word, a meeting, and even a bit of scoffing on her part; now it was admiration for her feats of horsewomanship -- now that I had merely passed through the Market Square and seen her _roulotte_. She had filled a larger place in my life than I suspected, and now nothing more happened. This void, so new to me, was harder to bear than real pain. Unavailingly I tried to shake it off, for I could not as yet imagine how much of comfort one may have remembering things. How should I have known that it is possible to live outside of the present moment? All that was left to me of Nazzarena gone, Nazzarena forever lost, it was less the thought of her than an all pervading lassitude caused by her absence -- a lassitude which was dear to me, in which I seemed to find her again, and which made me incapable of taking an interest in anything whatever.

This condition of mind prevented my paying much attention to the changes which were taking place at our house. I accommodated myself to them without effort and every one spoke of my yielding disposition. Since the tower scene a certain embarrassment had existed between my father and my grandfather, which only my mother's tact rendered endurable to either. Though I had not been formally forbidden, I ceased to walk out with grandfather or even to go to his room. He would shut himself up a good part of the day to play on his violin. When we assembled at table he made no attempt to come near me, -- it was as if he had entirely given up our intimacy. That seemed to me somewhat ungrateful, in view of the important part I had taken in defending him. Meal times became stupid. One held aloof, another was absorbed in thought. I understood that both of them, by a tacit understanding, had retired from the municipal campaign. No one dared to speak of the elections, which were close at hand, but the notices posted on the walls which I read on the way to school, told me how things were. Martinod's name appeared, and even Galurin's, but Pour-the-drink and the two artists had been left out. Aunt Deen talked to herself on the staircase of extraordinary events and horrible traitors. In the end Martinod had accomplished his purpose: the candidate whom he dreaded, the only one he dreaded, had refused to run.

I also understood that grandfather had not gone again to the Café of the Navigators, either by way of observing the truce, or to avoid entreaties to which he would doubtless have been inclined to yield. When he heard that father had been called to the bedside of Casenave, who was delirious, he seemed surprised and even moved; he had therefore not seen that old companion.

"Casenave ill! " he exclaimed. "He must have drunk too much."

At luncheon father announced to us that Casenave was dead.

"I warned him," he said. "He ought to have given up the bottle long ago."

"He chose for himself," said grandfather.

He chose for himself! That was enough to excuse and justify all actions, good or bad, and so I understood it. I saw a reply spring to my father's lips, but he repressed it, and merely added:

"I have warned Tem Bossette. He will come to the same end, if he does not take care. It is already pretty late for him."

"All of them drunkards," summed up Aunt Deen, who liked to deal in generalities.

Election Sunday came at last. I knew it by the multicoloured posters which decorated the fronts of buildings and the greater affluence of those that I had to wade through on the way to the School Mass. At the house no one had made the slightest allusion to it. After the spiritless luncheon grandfather put on his hat and grasped his cane.

"Where are you going? " asked Aunt Deen.

"Into the country."

"You have voted already?"

"Indeed I have not."

"It's a duty."

"That's all the same to me."