Callings

In a beautiful garden where the rays of the autumnal sun seemed to
linger with delight, under a sky already greenish, in which golden
clouds floated like voyaging continents, four fine children, four boys,
doubtless tired of playing, were chatting away.

One said: "Yesterday I was taken to the theatre. In great, sad palaces,
where in the background spread the sea and the sky, men and women, also
serious and sad, but much more beautiful and much better dressed than
any we see about, were talking with musical voices. They threatened one
another, they entreated, they were disconsolate, and often they rested
a hand on a dagger sunk within the sash. Ah! that is beautiful indeed!
The women are much more beautiful and much greater than those that come
to the house to visit us, and although with their great hollow eyes and
their fiery cheeks they have a terrible look, you can not help loving
them. You are afraid, you want to cry, and still you are content....
And then, what is stranger still, it all makes you want to be dressed
the same, to say and to do the same things, to speak with the same
voice...."

One of the four children, who for several moments had no longer been
listening to his comrade's talk, and had been watching with surprising
fixity some point or other in the sky, said all at once: "Look, look
down there! Do you see Him? He is sitting on that little isolated
cloud, that little fiery cloud, which is moving slowly. He too, they
say, He watches us."

"Who? Who?" asked the others.

"God!" he answered, with the accent of perfect conviction.--"Ah! He
is already quite far away; by and by you will not be able to see Him.
Doubtless He is traveling to visit every land. Look, He is going to
pass in back of that line of trees near the horizon..., and now He is
going down behind the steeple.... Ah! you can't see Him any longer!"
And the child remained for some time turned in the same direction,
fixing on the line which separates earth from the sky eyes in which
burned an inexpressible glow of ecstasy and regret.

"He is a fool, that one, with his good God, whom he alone can see!"
then said the third, whose whole person was marked with a singular
vivacity and life. "I am going to tell you how something happened
to me which has never happened to you, and which is a little more
interesting than your theatre and your clouds.... Several days ago my
parents took me on a trip with them, and as the inn where we stopped
didn't have enough beds for all of us, it was decided that I should
sleep in the same bed as my nursery maid." He drew his comrades quite
close and spoke in a lower tone. "That was a strange performance, now!
not to sleep alone, and to be in bed with your maid, in the dark. As I
couldn't sleep, I amused myself, while she was sleeping, by passing my
hand over her arms, her neck, and her shoulders. She has a much thicker
neck and arm than all other women, and her skin is so soft, so soft,
that you might call it note-paper or silver paper. I liked it so much
that I should have kept on for a long time, if I hadn't been afraid,
afraid at first of waking her, and then still afraid of I don't know
what. Then I buried my head in the hair which lay down her back, thick
as a mane, and it smelled just as good, I assure you, as the flowers in
the garden, right now. Try, when you can, to do as much, and you will
see!"

The young author of this prodigious revelation, in telling his story,
had his eyes wide open in a sort of stupefaction at what he still felt,
and the rays of the setting sun, slipping across the sandy locks of his
ruffled hair, illumined it like a sulphurous aureole of passion. It
was easy to guess that this youngster would not lose his life seeking
Divinity in the clouds, and that he would frequently discover it
elsewhere.

At last the fourth spoke: "You know that I seldom find amusement at
home. I am never taken to a play; my tutor is too stingy; God doesn't
bother about me and my ennui, and I haven't a pretty nurse to fondle
me. It has often seemed to me that I should just like to go forever
straight ahead, without knowing where, without any one's being worried,
always to see new lands. I am never well off anywhere, and I always
think I shall be better somewhere else. Oh well! I saw, at the last
fair at the nearby village, three men who lived as I should like to.
You paid no attention to them, you others. They were large, almost
black, and very proud, although in rags, looking as though they had
need of no one. Their great gloomy eyes became quite brilliant while
they played their music; a music so astonishing that it made you want
now to dance, now to cry, or to do both together, and it would almost
make you go mad if you listened too long. One, drawing his bow across
his violin, seemed to be whispering sorrow; another, making his hammer
skip over the keys of a little piano hung by a strap about his neck,
appeared to be mocking the plaint of his neighbor; while from time
to time the third clashed his cymbals with extraordinary violence.
They were so pleased with themselves that they went on playing their
wild music even after the crowd had gone away. Finally they gathered
together their sous, piled their luggage on their back, and left. I
wanted to know where they lived, and I followed them from afar, right
to the edge of the forest, and only then, I understood that they lived
nowhere.

"Then one said: 'Must we pitch the tent?'

"'Goodness! No!' answered the other. 'It's such a pleasant night!'

"The third spoke, while figuring up the collection: 'These folks do not
appreciate music, and their wives dance like bears. Fortunately, within
a month we shall be in Austria, where we shall find more amiable folk.'

"'Perhaps we'd do better to go toward Spain, for the season is forward;
let us flee before the rains, and moisten nothing but our gullets,'
said one of the others.

"I remember everything, as you see. Then each one drank a cup of brandy
and went to sleep, with his forehead toward the stars. At first I
wanted to beg them to take me along with them and to teach me to play
their instruments; but I didn't dare, doubtless because it is always
very difficult to come to a decision about anything, and also because I
was afraid of being recaptured before we were out of France."

The slightly interested air of the three other comrades made me realize
that this fellow was already misunderstood. I looked at him closely;
there was in his eye and on his brow that indescribable fatal
precocity which generally repells sympathy, and which, I know not why,
aroused my own to the point that for a moment I had the queer notion
that I might have a brother unknown to me.

The sun had set. The solemn night was come. The children separated,
each going in ignorance, according to circumstance and chance, to reap
his destiny, scandalize his relatives, and gravitate toward glory or
toward dishonor.