My first recollection, I said, is of my mother's playing. I see myself, sitting on a great black book, the family Bible. I must have been very small, and it was a large Bible, and lay on a table in the sitting-room. I see my mother standing before me, with her violin on her arm. She is light, young, and very graceful; beauty seems to flow from her face in a kind of dark brightness, if I may use such an expression; her eyes are soft and deep. I have seen no other eyes like my mother Marie's. She taps the violin with the bow; then she taps me under the chin.
"_Dis 'Bon jour!' petit Jacques!_" and I say "Bo' zour!" as well as I can, and duck my head, for a bow is expected of me. No bow, no music, and I am quivering with eagerness for the music. Now she draws the bow across the strings, softly, smoothly,--ah, my dear, you have heard only me play, all your life; if you could have heard my mother! As I see her and hear her, this day of my babyhood, the song she plays is the little French song that you love. If you could have heard her sing!
"A la claire fontaine As I went walking, walking, M'en allant promener, Beside the fountain fair, Jai trouvé l'eau si belle I found its waves so lovely, Que je m'y suis baigné. I stayed to bathe me there. Il y a longtemps que je 'Tis long and long I have t'aime, loved thee, Jamais je ne t'oublierai!" I'll ne'er forget thee more.
It is the song of my life, Melody; I never told you that before, but it has always pleased me well that you cared for it.
As my mother sings the last words, she bends and kisses the violin, which was always a living personage to her. Her head moves like a bird's head, quickly and softly. I see her face all brightness, as I have told you; then suddenly a shadow falls on it. My back is towards the door, but she stands facing it. I feel myself snatched up by hands like quivering steel; I am set down--not roughly--on the floor. My father turns a terrible face on my mother.
"Mary!" he cried. "He was on the Bible! You--you set the child on the Holy Bible!"
I am too frightened to cry out or move, but my mother Marie lays down her violin in its box--as tenderly as she would lay me in my cradle--and goes to my father, and puts her arm round his neck, and speaks to him low and gently, stroking back his short, fair hair. Presently the frightful look goes out of his face; it softens into love and sadness; they go hand-in-hand into the inner room, and I hear their voices together speaking gravely, slowly. I do not know that they are praying,--I have known it since. I watch the flies on the window, and wish my father had not come.