My mother!—I have already mentioned her two or three times in the course of this recital, but without stopping to speak of her at length. It seems that at first she was no more to me than a natural and instinctive refuge where I ran for shelter from all terrifying and unfamiliar things, from all the dark forebodings that had no real cause.
But I believe she took on reality and life for the first time in the burst of ineffable tenderness which I felt when one May morning she entered my room with a bouquet of pink hyacinths in her hand; she brought in with her as she came a ray of sunlight.
I was convalescing from one of the maladies peculiar to children,—measles or whooping cough, I know not which,—and I had been ordered to remain in bed and to keep warm. By the rays of light that filtered in through the closed shutters I divined the springtime warmth and brightness of the sun and air, and I felt sad that I had to remain behind the curtains of my tiny white bed; I wished to rise and go out; but most of all I had a desire to see my mother.
The door opened and she entered, smiling. Ah, I remember it so well! I recall so distinctly how she looked as she stood upon the threshold of the door. And I remember that she brought in with her some of the sunlight and balminess of the spring day.
I see again the expression of her face as she looked at me; and I hear the sound of her voice, and recall the details of her beloved dress that would look funny and old-fashioned to me now. She had returned from her morning shopping, and she wore a straw hat trimmed with yellow roses and a shawl of lilac barege (it was the period of the shawl) sprinkled with tiny bouquets of violets. Her dark curls (the poor beloved curls to-day, alas! so thin and white) were at this time without a gray hair. There was about her the fragrance of the May day, and her face as it looked that morning with its broad brimmed hat is still distinctly present with me. Besides the bouquet of pink hyacinths, she had brought me a tiny watering-pot, an exact imitation in miniature of the crockery ones so much used by the country people.
As she leaned over my bed to embrace me I felt as if every wish was gratified. I no longer had a desire to weep, nor to rise from my bed, nor to go out. She was with me and that sufficed—I was consoled, tranquillized, and re-created by her gracious presence.
I was, I think, a little more than three years old at this time, and my mother must have been about forty-two years of age; but I had not the least notion of age in regard to her, and it had never occurred to me to wonder whether she was young or old; nor did I realize until a later time that she was beautiful. No, at this period that she was her own dear self was enough; to me she was in face and form a person so apart and so unique that I would not have dreamed of comparing her with any one else. From her whole being there emanated such a joyousness, security and tenderness, and so much goodness that from thence was born my understanding of faith and prayer.
I would that I could speak hallowed words to the first blessed form that I find in the book of memory. I would it were possible that I could greet my mother with words filled with the meaning I wish to convey. They are words which cause bountiful tears to flow, but tears fraught with I know not how much of the sweetness of consolation and joy, words that are ever, and in spite of everything, filled with the hope of an immortal reunion.
And since I have touched upon this mystery that has had such an influence upon my soul, I will here set down that my mother alone is the only person in the world of whom I have the feeling that death cannot separate me. With other human beings, those whom I have loved with all my heart and soul, I have tried to imagine a hereafter, a to-morrow in which there shall be no to-morrow; but no, I cannot! Rather I have always had a horrible consciousness of our nothingness—dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Because of my mother alone have I been able to keep intact the faith of my early days. It still seems to me that when I have finished playing my poor part in life, when I no longer run in the overgrown paths that lead to the unattainable, when I am through amusing humanity with my conceits and my sorrows, I will go there where my mother, who has gone before me, is, and she will receive me; and the smile of serenity that she now wears in my memory will have become one of triumphant realization.
True, I see that distant region only dimly, and it has no more substance than a pale gray vision; my words, however intangible and elusive, give too definite a form to my dreamy conceptions. But still (I speak as a little child, with the child's faith), but still I always think of my mother as having, in that far off place, preserved her earthly aspect. I think of her with her dear white curls and the straight lines of her beautiful profile that the years may have impaired a little, but which I still find perfect. The thought that the face of my mother shall one day disappear from my eyes forever, that it is no more than combined elements subject to disintegration, and that she will be lost in the universal abyss of nothingness, not only makes my heart bleed, but it causes me to revolt as at something unthinkable and monstrous; it cannot be! I have the feeling that there is about her something which death cannot touch.
My love for my mother (the only changeless love of my life) is so free from all material feeling that that alone gives me an inexplicable hope, almost gives me a confidence in the immortality of the soul.
I cannot very well understand why the vision of my mother near my bed of sickness should that morning have impressed me so vividly, for she was nearly always with me. It all seems very mysterious; it is as if at that particular moment she was for the first time revealed to me.
And why among the treasured playthings of my childhood has the tiny watering-pot taken on the value and sacred dignity of a relic? So much so indeed, that when I am far distant on the ocean, in hours of danger, I think of it with tenderness, and see it in the place where it has lain for years, in the little bureau, never opened, mixed in with broken toys; and should it disappear I would feel as if I had lost an amulet that could not be replaced.
And the simple shawl of lilac barege, found recently among some old clothing laid aside to be given to the poor, why have I put it away as carefully as if it were a priceless object? Because in its color (now faded), in its quaint Indian pattern and tiny bouquets of violets, I still find an emanation from my mother; I believe that I borrow therefrom a holy calm and sweet confidence that is almost a faith. And mingled in with the other feelings there is perhaps a melancholy regret for those May mornings of long ago that seemed so much brighter than are those of to-day.
Truly I fear this book, the most personal I have ever written, will weary many.
In transcribing these memories in the calm of middle life, so favorable to reverie, I had constantly present in my thought the lovely queen to whom I would dedicate this book; it is as if I were writing her a long letter with the full assurance of being understood in all those sacred matters to which words give but an inadequate expression.
Perhaps you will understand also, my dear unknown readers, who with kindly sympathy have followed me thus far; and all those who cherish, or who have been cherished by their mothers will not smile at the childish things written down here.
But this chapter will certainly seem ridiculous to those who are strangers to an all absorbing love, they will not be able to imagine that I have a deep pity to exchange for their cynical smiles.
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