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  • 1891
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Then twilight comes, and the crowds have departed; on foot, on horseback, on bicycles and tricycles, in every kind of vehicle; many by the _chemin de fer de ceinture_, the Auteuil station of which is close by … all is quiet and bare and dull.

Then down drops the silent night like a curtain, and beneath its friendly cover the strange transformation effects itself quickly, and all is made ready for _me_. The grand-stand evaporates, the railway station melts away into thin air; there is no more Eiffel Tower with its electric light! The sweet forest of fifty years ago rises suddenly out of the ground, and all the wild live things that once lived in it wake to their merry life again.

A quiet deep old pond in a past French forest, hallowed by such memories! What _can_ be more enchanting? Oh, soft and sweet nostalgia, so soon to be relieved!

Up springs the mellow sun, the light of other days, to its appointed place in the heavens–zenith, or east or west, according to order. A light wind blows from the south–everything is properly disinfected, and made warm and bright and comfortable–and lo! old Peter Ibbetson appears upon the scene, absolute monarch of all he surveys for the next eight hours–one whose right there are literally none to dispute.

I do not encourage noisy gatherings there as a rule, nor by the pond; I like to keep the sweet place pretty much to myself; there is no selfishness in this, for I am really depriving nobody. Whoever comes there now, comes there nearly fifty years ago and does not know it; they must have all died long since.

Sometimes it is a _garde champêtre_ in Louis Philippe’s blue and silver, with his black pipe, his gaiters, his old flint gun, and his embroidered game-bag. He does well in the landscape.

Sometimes it is a pair of lovers, if they are good-looking and well-behaved, or else the boys from Saindou’s school to play fly the garter–_la raie_.

Sometimes it is Monsieur le Curé, peacefully conning his “Hours,” as with slow and thoughtful step he paces round and round. I can now read his calm, benevolent face by the light of half a century’s experience of life, and have learned to love that still, black, meditative aspect which I found so antipathetic as a small boy–_he_ is no burner alive of little heretics! This world is big enough for us both–and so is the world to come! And he knows it. Now, at all events!

[Illustration: “THIS WORLD IS BIG ENOUGH FOR US BOTH”]

Sometimes even a couple of Prendergasts are admitted, or even three; they are not so bad, after all; they have the qualities of their faults, although you might not think it.

But very often the old beloved shades arrive with their fishing-nets, and their high spirits, and their ringing Anglo-French–Charlie, and Alfred, and Madge, and the rest, and the grinning, barking, gyrating Médor, who dives after stones.

Oh, how it does my heart good to see and hear them!

They make me feel like a grandfather. Even Monsieur le Major is younger than I–his mustache less white than mine. He only comes to my chin; but I look up to him still, and love and revere him as when I was a little child.

And Dr. Seraskier! I place myself between him and what he is looking at, so that he seems to be looking straight at me; but with a far-away look in his eyes, as is only natural. Presently something amuses him, and he smiles, and his eyes crinkle up as his daughter’s used to do when she was a woman, and his majestic face becomes as that of an angel, like hers.

_L’ange du sourire!_

And my gay, young, light-hearted father, with his vivacity and rollicking laugh and eternal good-humor! He is just like a boy to me now, le beau Pasquier! He has got a new sling of his own invention; he pulls it out of his pocket, and slings stones high over the tree-tops and far away out of sight–to the joy of himself and everybody else–and does not trouble much as to where they will fall.

My mother is young enough now to be my daughter; it is as a daughter, a sweet, kind, lovely daughter, that I love her now–a happily-married daughter with a tall, handsome husband who yodles divinely and slings stones, and who has presented me with a grandson–_beau comme le jour_–for whatever Peter Ibbetson may have been in his time, there is no gainsaying the singular comeliness of little Gogo Pasquier.

And Mimsey is just a child angel! Monsieur le Major is infallible.

“Elle a toutes les intelligences de la tête et du coeur! Vous verrez un jour, quand ça ira mieux; vous verrez!”

That day has long come and gone; it is easy to see all that now–to have the eyes of Monsieur le Major.

Ah, poor little Mimsey, with her cropped head and her pale face, and long, thin arms and legs, and grave, kind, luminous eyes, that have not yet learned to smile. What she is to _me!!!!_

And Madame Seraskier, in all the youthful bloom and splendor of her sacred beauty! A chosen lily among women–the mother of Mary!

She sits on the old bench by the willow, close to her daughter’s gloves. Sometimes (a trivial and almost comic detail!) she actually seems to sit _upon_ them, to my momentary distress; but when she goes away, there they are still, not flattened a bit–the precious mould of those beautiful, generous hands to which I owe everything here and hereafter.

* * * * *

I have not been again to my old home. I dread the sight of the avenue. I cannot face “Parva sed Apta.”

But I have seen Mary again–seven times.

And every time she comes she brings a book with her, gilt-edged and bound in green morocco like the Byron we read when we were children, or in red morocco like the _Elegant Extracts_ out of which we used to translate Gray’s “Elegy,” and the “Battle of Hohenlinden,” and Cunningham’s “Pastorals” into French.

Such is her fancy!

But inside these books are very different. They are printed in cipher, and in a language I can only understand in my dream. Nothing that I, or any one else, has ever read in any living book can approach, for interest and importance, what I read in these. There are seven of them.

I say to myself when I read them: it is perhaps well that I shall not remember this when I wake, after all!

For I might be indiscreet and injudicious, and either say too much or not enough; and the world might come to a stand-still, all through me. For who would fardels bear, as Mary said! No! The world must be content to wait for the great guesser!

Thus my lips are sealed.

All I know is this: _that all will be well for us all, and of such a kind that all who do not sigh for the moon will be well content_.

* * * * *

In such wise have I striven, with the best of my ability, to give some account of my two lives and Mary’s. We have lived three lives between us–three lives in one.

It has been a happy task, however poorly performed, and all the conditions of its performance have been singularly happy also.

A cell in a criminal lunatic asylum! That does not sound like a bower in the Elysian Fields! It is, and has been for me.

Besides the sun that lights and warms my inner life, I have been treated with a kindness and sympathy and consideration by everybody here, from the governor downward, that fills me with unspeakable gratitude.

Most especially do I feel grateful to my good friends, the doctor, the chaplain, and the priest–best and kindest of men–each of whom has made up his mind about everything in heaven and earth and below, and each in a contrary sense to the two others!

There is but one thing they are neither of them quite cocksure about, and that is whether I am mad or sane.

And there is one thing–the only one on which they are agreed; namely, that, mad or sane, I am a great undiscovered genius!

My little sketches, plain or colored, fill them with admiration and ecstasy. Such boldness and facility and execution, such an overwhelming fertility in the choice of subjects, such singular realism in the conception and rendering of past scenes, historical and otherwise, such astounding knowledge of architecture, character, costume, and what not, such local color–it is all as if I had really been there to see!

I have the greatest difficulty in keeping my fame from spreading beyond the walls of the asylum. My modesty is as great as my talent!

No, I do not wish this great genius to be discovered just yet. It must all go to help and illustrate and adorn the work of a much greater genius, from which it has drawn every inspiration it ever had.

It is a splendid and delightful task I have before me: to unravel and translate and put in order these voluminous and hastily-penned reminiscences of Mary’s, all of them written in the cipher we invented together in our dream–a very transparent cipher when once you have got the key!

It will take five years at least, and I think that, without presumption, I can count on that, strong and active as I feel, and still so far from the age of the Psalmist.

First of all, I intend

* * * * *

_Note_.–Here ends my poor cousin’s memoir. He was found dead from effusion of blood on the brain, with his pen still in his hand, and his head bowed down on his unfinished manuscript, on the margin of which he had just sketched a small boy wheeling a toy wheelbarrow full of stones from one open door to another. One door is labelled _Passé_, the other _Avenir_.

I arrived in England, after a long life spent abroad, at the time his death occurred, but too late to see him alive. I heard much about him and his latter days. All those whose duties brought them into contact with him seemed to have regarded him with a respect that bordered on veneration.

I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing him in his coffin. I had not seen him since he was twelve years old.

As he lay there, in his still length and breadth, he appeared gigantic–the most magnificent human being I ever beheld; and the splendor of his dead face will haunt my memory till I die.

MADGE PLUNKET.