The House by Henry Bordeaux

OUR father and mother held a council of war, in which the resolution was taken that we should be sent away. The family owned, on the uplands of one of the high valleys, a chalet which we called the Alpette, standing by itself in a clearing in the pines. In favourable seasons we used to spend a month of the long vacation there. A dilapidated stagecoach used to climb to the nearest village in four or five hours. It was not easy to get supplies up there, and we should have to be content with frugal and modest fare; but the air was redolent of balsam, and we should be beyond all danger of contagion.

"The epidemic is spreading," father told us. "You will all go to-morrow morning except your mother, who will not leave me."

Perhaps he had resolved to remain alone, but had encountered her refusal.

"That's an excellent idea," said grandfather approvingly. "We are good for nothing here, but rather, in the way."

"Well! I for one shall not go," declared Aunt Deen, shaking her head. "I am a part of the building."

Father urged that she had her brother to take care of, but this argument was by no means favourably received.

"He can take care of himself well enough. He is perfectly well. And besides, Louise will look after him."

Louise urged her desire to stay. We thought she was joking, for she said it laughingly, but she firmly insisted. Couldn't she be of service, visiting the sick, nursing them even? Wasn't every willing person needed? Between her and Aunt Deen a debate arose, the unselfishness of which was at the time unperceived by me; but Aunt Deen insisted so hard that she carried her point.

Encouraged by this example, I signified to my parents my fixed intention not to leave town, but to play my part in it also. This was by way of affirming my personality -- my personality of barely eighteen years! -- much more than as a boast of courage. The idea of death, either my own or that of the others, had not occurred to me. I did not apprehend the slightest danger. No doubt father was the most exposed, both by his profession and his functions, but to me he seemed immortal. I was simply thinking of gaining a little importance.

Father listened to me patiently, and then replied that if I had begun to study medicine, as he had hoped, he should not have hesitated to make use of me, notwithstanding his affection and his fears; it would have been a right which I might have claimed; but that having taken another course, I had no good reason for remaining in a vitiated atmosphere, where I could be of no use, at the risk of succumbing to the disease any day. He thanked me for my offer, but could not accept it. The mountain air would be good for my health, which would improve up there: I was somewhat delicate, I should return stronger.

The calm refusal simply exasperated me. I discerned in it a contempt that was not to be endured, and I persisted in claiming the post as if my honour was involved.

"I regret infinitely, father, my inability to yield in this matter, but I judge that I ought to stay, and I shall stay."

The words came grandly. He fixed me with his piercing eyes, and did not even raise his voice:

"I rule in my house, before ruling in the town, my boy. I give you this order: You will go to-morrow with your grandfather, Louise and the two younger children. I am in charge of the whole city: we shall see whether my son will be the first to disobey."

He turned away. So peremptorily had he spoken that a sense of the impossibility of resistance took possession of me. He had been humouring me this long time; he had thought from my reserve that I was indifferent if not hostile, and he cherished the hope of regaining my confidence. Now he suddenly abandoned all methods of conciliation and put me back in the ranks like a mere soldier, not like a future chief. Without caring the least in the world about taking active service among the hospital staff, I champed my bit with rage, as if I had been subjected to the most cruel abuse. Grandfather, delighted with this outcome, consoled me good-naturedly.

"Oho! what do you care? He has a craze for giving orders. We shall be very well off up there."

Our preparations filled the afternoon. Grandfather himself brought down from the tower his barometer, violin, pipes and almanacs. The repeated journeys put him out of breath, but he would stop for no one. The rest of the packing was of no interest to him, but concerned Aunt Deen, to whom he had long ago given over the care of his clothes and linen. At nightfall Abbé Heurtevant came for a visit. Father was at the hospital, or the mayor's office, and mother at the work-rooms where bed clothing for the sick poor was being made. Grandfather, with new found resolution, refused to have the door opened, and inquired from the window whether our friend had been disinfected.

Nothing would do but for the abbé to pass through the disinfecting room that had been set up in the house, after which he was welcomed with gladness, and grandfather even offered him his copy of the prophecies of Michel Nostradamus. M. Heurtevant accepted the gift with small enthusiasm; he was acquainted with the Centuries and found them obscure and contradictory.

"Yes, you prefer Sister Rose-Colombe and the Abbey of Orval. And what catastrophes have you to report, Abbé?"

"In the first place, your labourer Tem Bossette died this morning of the pestilence."