The novels, romances, and memoirs of Alphonse Daudet (3 page)

beautiful red flowers opening in the sun. I said to it, sobbing: "Give me one of your flowers," and it gave me one. I put it in my breast as a remembrance, I was very unhappy.

However, in the midst of this great sorrow, two things gave me pleasure: first the thought of getting on a ship, then the permission given me to carry my parrot with me. I said to myself that Robinson Crusoe had left his island under very similar conditions, and that gave me courage.

At last the day of departure arrived. M. Eyssette had already been a week at Lyons, having gone ahead with the heavy luggage, so I started in the company of Jacques, my mother and old Annou. My eldest brother, the Abbe, was not to leave, but he came with us as far as the stage of Beaucaire, and Colombe the porter came with us too. He walked in front, pushing an enormous wheelbarrow loaded with trunks. Behind came my brother the Abbe with Mme. Eyssette on his arrr..

Poor Abbe, I was never to see him again !

Old Annou followed next, flanked by a huge blue umbrella and by Jacques, who was very glad to go to Lyons, but was crying all the same. Finally, at the tail of the column, came Daniel Eyssette, gravely carrying the parrot's cage, and turning round every moment to look at his dear factory.

As the caravan moved off, the pomegranate-tree rose as high as it could above the garden walls to

see us for the last time. The plane-trees waved their branches in token of farewell. Daniel Eys-sette, much moved, furtively kissed the tips of his fingers to all of them.

I left my island the 30th of September 18—.

CHAPTER II.

THE COCKROACHES.

0 THINGS of my childhood ! What an impression you have left upon me! It seems to me that journey on the Rhone was only yesterday. I can still see the boat and its passengers and crew. The captain's name was Genies, the chief cook's, Montelimart. Such things are not forgotten.

The voyage lasted three days. I passed those three days on deck, going below only to eat and sleep. The rest of the time I stationed myself at the end of the bow near the anchor. There was a great gong there that was rung when we entered the towns; I sat down beside this gong among heaps of rope, placed the parrot's cage between my legs, and looked about. The Rhone was so broad that I could scarcely see the banks, but

1 could have wished that it were still wider and that it were called " the sea." The sky was bright, and the water green; large barges moved down with the current. Boatmen, fording the stream on the backs of mules, passed near us, singing. Occasionally the boat went by some tufted island, covered with reeds and willows. " Oh, a desert island I " said I to myself, and devoured it with my eyes.

Toward the end of the third day I thought we were going to have a shower. The sky had suddenly grown dark; a thick mist floated above the stream; in front of the ship a large lantern was lighted, and, in view of these signs, I began to be excited. At this moment, somebody near me said : " There is Lyons ! " At the same time the great gong began to ring. It was Lyons.

I saw dimly, through the fog, lights burning on both shores; we passed under one bridge, then under another. Every time, the enormous funnel of the engine bent double and vomited torrents of black smoke that made me cough. On the boat, there was a terrible commotion. The passengers were looking for their trunks; the sailors were swearing and rolling barrels about in the dark. It was raining.

I made haste to join my mother, Jacques, and old Annou, who were at the other end of the boat, and there we were, all four of us, huddled together under Annou's big umbrella, while the boat was being brought up along the quay and the debarkation began.

In fact, if M. Eyssette had not come to take us off, I think we should never have got ashore. He groped his way toward us, calling: " Who goes there? Who goes there? " To this familiar "Who goes there?" we answered: " Friends," all four at once with inexpressible joy and rehef. M. Eyssette kissed us briskly, took my brother by one hand and me by the other, said to the women: " Follow me," and we started. Ah, he was a man!

We advanced with some trouble: it was dark, and the deck was sHppery, At every step we stumbled against boxes. Suddenly, from the bow of the boat, a strident, despairing voice reached us. " Robinson ! Robinson ! " said the voice. " O Heavens ! " I cried ; and attempted to draw away my hand from my father's; he, thinking I had slipped, pressed it still tighter.

The voice began again, more strident and more despairing: "Robinson! Poor Robinson ! " I made a new effort to disengage my hand. " My parrot," I cried, " my parrot! "

" Is he speaking now?" asked Jacques.

I should think he was speaking, he could be heard a mile away. In my confusion, I had left him at the bow of the ship, near the anchor, and it was from there he was calling with all his might: *' Robinson ! Robinson ! Poor Robinson ! "

Unfortunately, we were far away, and the captain was shouting : " Make haste."

" We will come and get him to-morrow," said M. Eyssette; " nothing is lost on board a boat." Thereupon, in spite of my tears, he dragged me away. Alas! the next day we sent for him and could not find him. Think of my despair: no more Friday? No more parrot! Robinson Crusoe was no longer possible. Moreover, what means was there, with the best will in the world, to devise a desert island, in a fourth story, in a damp and dirty house, in the Rue Lanterne?

Oh, that horrible house ! I shall see it all my life: the staircase was sticky; the courtyard was

like a well; the porter, a shoemaker, had his shop against the pump. It was hideous.

The evening of our arrival, as old Annou was installing herself in the kitchen, she gave a cry of distress: " The cockroaches ! The cockroaches ! " We hurried to her. What a sight! The kitchen was full of these disgusting bugs; they were on the dresser, along the walls, in the drawers, on the mantelpiece, on the sideboard, everywhere. We stepped on them without meaning to do it. Faugh ! Annou had already killed a great many; but the more she killed, the more they came. They crawled out through the hole of the sink; we stopped the hole of the sink, but the next evening they came back through some other place, we could not tell where. We were obliged to get a cat expressly to kill them, and every evening there was fearful slaughter in the kitchen.

The cockroaches made me hate Lyons from the very first evening. The next day it was much worse. We had to form new habits; the hours for meals were changed, and the loaves of bread had a different shape from what they had at home. They were called " crowns." What a name !

On Sunday, to cheer ourselves a little, we took a family walk on the quays of the Rhone, with umbrellas. Instinctively we always went toward the South, in the direction of Perrache. " I think that brings us nearer home," said my mother, who pined even more than I. These family excursions were lugubrious. M. Eyssette scolded, Jacques cried all the time, and I kept always in the rear;

I do not know why, but I was ashamed of being in the streets, probably because we were poor.

At the end of a month, old Annou fell ill. The fogs were killing her, and we had to send her back to the South. The poor woman, who loved my mother passionately, could not make up her mind to leave us. She implored us to keep her, promising not to die. We had to put her on a boat by force, and when she reached the South, in desperation, she married.

When Annou had gone, we took no other servant, which seemed to me the height of misery. The porter's wife came up to do the rough work; and my mother burned at the stove-fires her beautiful white hands that I was so fond of kissing; as to the provisions, Jacques bought them. A big basket was put under his arm and he was told to " buy this and that," and he bought this and that very well, always crying however.

Poor Jacques ! He was not happy either. M. Eyssette, weary of seeing him eternally in tears, finally took a dislike to him, and overwhelmed him with cuffs. We heard all day long: " Jacques, you are a fool! Jacques, you are an ass ! " The truth is that Jacques lost his presence of mind before my father. The efforts he made to restrain his tears made him unattractive. M. Eyssette brought him ill-luck. Listen to the scene of the pitcher.

One evening, just as we were sitting down to table, we found there was not a single drop of water left in the house.

" If you wish, I will go and get some," says the kind little Jacques.

And thereupon he takes the pitcher, — a large one of earthenware.

M. Eyssette shrugs his shoulders: " If Jacques goes," he says, " the pitcher is broken, that's sure."

" You hear, Jacques," says Mme. Eyssette in her gentle voice, "you hear, don't break it; be careful."

M. Eyssette resumes:

" Oh, it is useless for you to tell him not to break it! He will break it all the same."

Here Jacques's mournful voice puts in:

" Why is it that you want me to break it? "

" I do not want you to break it; I merely say that you will break it," answers M. Eyssette in a tone that admits no reply.

Jacques does not answer: he takes the pitcher in a feverish hand, and goes out abruptly, as if he wanted to say: "Oh! I shall break it, shall I? Well, we shall see."

Five minutes, ten minutes pass; Jacques does not return. Mme. Eyssette begins to be worried.

" If only nothing has happened to him ! "

" Good gracious ! What do you suppose has happened to him?" says M. Eyssette in a surly tone. " He has broken the pitcher, and dares not come back."

Still, as he says this, — for with all his churlish ways, he is the kindest man in the world, — he rises and goes to open the door to see what has

become of Jacques. He has not far to go; Jacques stands on the landing, before the door, with empty hands, silent and petrified. Seeing M. Eyssette, he turns pale, and in a heartbroken and faint voice, — oh, how faint! — he says, "I have broken it." He had broken it.

In the archives of the Eyssette family we call this "the scene of the pitcher."

We had been about two months in Lyons when our parents began to think about our education. My father would have liked to put us to school, but it cost too much. " Suppose we send them to a school for choir-boys?" said Mme. Eyssette; " children seem to do very well there." My father liked this idea, and as Saint-Nizier was the nearest church, they sent us to the school attached to Saint-Nizier.

The school for choir-boys was very amusing. Instead of stuffing our heads with Greek and Latin, as in other institutions, they taught us to serve at high and low mass, to sing the anthems, to make genuflexions, and to swing the censer elegantly, which is very difficult. There were, of course, here and there, some hours in the day devoted to declensions, and to the Epitome, but these were only accessories. Above all, we were there for the service of the church. At least once a week, the Abb6 Micou said to us solemnly, between two pinches of snufif: " To-morrow, young gentlemen, there will be no class in the morning; we have a funeral on hand."

We had a funeral. What joy! Then there

were baptisms, marriages, a visit from the bishop, and the viaticum carried to the sick. Oh, the viaticum ! How proud we were when we could go with it! The priest walked under a little red velvet dais, carrying the host and the holy oils. Two choir-boys held up the dais, and two others escorted it with big gilded lanterns. A fifth walked ahead, shaking a rattle. Generally, this function fell to me. At the passing of the viaticum, the men took off their hats, and the women crossed themselves. When we went by a guard-house, the sentinel cried: "To arms!" and the soldiers ran to draw themselves up in line. " Present arms ! " said the officer. The muskets rang, and the drum beat, I shook my rattle three times, as at the Sanctus, and we passed on.

Each one of us had in a little wardrobe a complete ecclesiastical outfit: a black cassock with long skirts, an alb, a surplice with full sleeves stiff with starch, black silk stockings, two skull-caps, one of cloth, and the other of velvet, bands bordered with fine white pearls, in fact all that was necessary.

It appears this costume was very becoming to me.

" He is perfectly charming in it," said Mme. Eyssette. Unfortunately, I was very small, and this disheartened me. Imagine that even when I stood on tiptoe, I came up no higher than the white stockings of M. Caduffe, our beadle; and I was very slight, too. Once at mass, as I was changing the position of the gospels, the big book

was so heavy that it dragged me down. I fell my whole length on the altar steps; the lectern was broken and the service interrupted. It was the day of Pentecost; what a scandal! Apart from these trifling inconveniences from my small stature, I was much pleased with my lot, and often, in the evening, as we went to bed, Jacques and I would say to each other: " On the whole, the choir-boys' school is very nice." I am sorry to say we did not stay there long. A friend of the family, rector of a school in the South, wrote one day to my father that if he would like a day scholarship at the Lyons grammar-school for one of his sons, it could be obtained for him.

" It will do for Daniel," said M. Eyssette. " And what about Jacques? " asked my mother. " Oh, Jacques ! I shall keep him with me; he will be useful to me. Besides, I see he has a taste for business. We will make a merchant of him."

Upon my word, I do not know how M. Eyssette had been able to find out that Jacques had a taste for business. At that time the poor boy had a taste for nothing but tears, and if they had consulted me— But they did not consult him, nor me either.

What struck me first on my arrival at school was that I was the only boy in a blouse. At Lyons, the sons of well-to-do men did not wear blouses; only the street children, rowdies as they are called, did. But I had one, a little checked blouse that dated from the time of the factory; I wore a blouse, and looked like a rowdy. When I

entered the class, the boys grinned; they said: " There, he has a blouse ! " The teacher made a wry face and took an immediate dislike to me. From that time, when he spoke to me, it was always disdainfully.