In the month of March, as the shadows of twilight gathered, two little children were seated very close together upon a low footstool--two little ones, between the ages of five and six, dressed in short trousers with white pinafores over them, as was the fashion of the time. After having played wildly they were now quietly amusing themselves with paper and pencils. The dim light seemed to fill them with a vague fear, and it troubled their spirits.
Of the two children only one was drawing--it was I. The other, a friend invited over for the day, an exceptional thing, was watching me with great attention. With some difficulty (trusting me meantime) he followed the fantastic movements of my pencil whose intention I took care to explain to him at some length. And my oral interpretation was necessary, for I was busy executing two drawings that I entitled respectively, “The Happy Duck” and “The Unhappy Duck.”
The room in which we were seated must have been furnished about the year 1805, at the time of the marriage of my now-very-old grandmother, who still occupied it, and who this evening was seated in the chair of the Directory period; she was singing to herself and she took no notice of us.
My memories of my grandmother are indistinct for her death occurred shortly after this time; but as I will never again, in the course of this recital, have a more vivid impression of her, I will here insert what I know of her history.
It seems that in the stress of all sorts of troubles she had been a brave and noble mother. After reverses that were so general in those days, after losing her husband at the Battle of Trafalgar, and her elder son at the shipwreck of the Medusa, she went resolutely to work to educate her younger son, my father, until such time as he should be able to support himself. At about her eightieth year (which was not far distant when I came into the world) the senility of second childhood had set in; at that time I knew nothing about the tragedy of the loss of memory and I could not realize the vacancy of her mind and soul.
She would often stand for a long time before a mirror and talk in a most amiable way to her own reflection, which she called, “my good neighbor” or “my dear neighbor.” It was also her mania to sing with a most excessive ardor the Marseillaise, the Parisiennes, the “Song of Farewell,” and all the noble songs of the transition time, which had been the rage in her young womanhood.