Читать книгу My School Days - E Nesbit - Страница 5

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With what delicious thrills of anticipation and excitement I packed my doll's clothes on the eve of our journey! I had a little tin trunk with a real padlock; I have it still, by the way, only now it holds old letters and a bunch of violets and a few other little worthless things that I do not often have the courage to look at nowadays. It is battered now and the paint is worn off; but then it was fresh and shiny and I packed all the doll's clothes in it with a light heart.

I don't remember anything about our leaving home, or saying good-bye to the boys; so I fancy that they must have gone back to school some time before; but I remember the night passage from Newhaven to Dieppe far too vividly to care to describe it. I was a very worn-out little girl indeed when we reached Rouen and I lay for the first time in a little white French bed.

My mind was, I suppose, a little upset by my soul's sorrows at Stamford and my body's unspeakable discomforts on board the channel boat, and I was seized with a horror of the words Débit de Tabac which I had noticed on our way from the station; I associated them with the gravestone of my father, I don't know why, I can only conjecture that the last syllable of Débit being the same as that of our name, may- have had something to do with it. I lay awake in the dark, the light from the oil lamp in the street came through the Persiennes and fell in bright bars on the wall. As I grew drowsier I seemed to read there in letters of fire "Débit de Tabac"

Then I fell asleep, and dreamed that my father's ghost came to me, and implored me to have the horrible French inscription erased from his tomb- "for I was an Englishman," he said.

Then I woke, rigid with terror, and finally summoned courage to creep across the corridor to my mother's room and seek refuge in her arms. I am particular to mention this dream because it is the first remembrance I have of any terror of the dead, or of the supernatural. I do not at all know how it had its rise; perhaps in the chatter of some nurse-maid, long forgotten. By-and-by I should like to tell you about some of the things that used to frighten me when I was a child; but just now we are at Rouen where Joan of Arc was burned and where the church of St. Ouen is. Even then the beauty of that marvellous Gothic church filled me with a delight none the less intense for being incomprehensible to me.

We went too, to St. Catharine du Mont. The ceiling of the church was blue, with gold stars. I thought it very beautiful. It was very windy on the mount, I remember, and the sky outside was blue, like the church ceiling, with white clouds instead of gold stars.

There was a stall a little way clown the hill where a white-coifed woman sold crucifixes and medals and rosaries and pictures. My mother bought me a little painting of the church in an alabaster frame. It was for a long time one of my chief treasures.

We went on to Paris. It was very hot and very dusty. It was the Exhibition year. I went to the Exhibition which seemed to me large, empty and very tiring. I saw the Emperor and the pretty Empress driving in a carriage with their little son. The boy was about my own age, and wore a velvet suit and an embroidered frilly collar. The crowd cheered them with wild enthusiasm. Three years later- But this is not a history-paper.

The pleasantest part of our stay in Paris was the time that my cousin Fred spent with us. He lived in Paris, and knew that little girls like sweeties. Also he sang the comic songs of the day, "Kafoozleum" and "It's really very unpleasant," and taught me their long and dreary words. He was very kind to me, and I remember him with tenderness though I have never seen him since. On the whole, though I had a real silver daisy brooch bought at the Exhibition, and more toys than could conveniently be carried in my tin trunk, I was glad to get away from Paris.

As this is not a guide-book I suppose I must not tell you about Tours, and the Convent of Marmoutier. I expected a convent to be a dark and terrible place, with perhaps a nun or two being built into the wall, and I was relieved to find a trim, well-kept garden and a pleasant house, where kindly-faced women in black gowns and white guimpes walked about breviary in hand. Nor must I linger at Poitiers, where we saw gloves made, and I, to my intense delight was measured for a small pair of bright blue kid. I liked Poitiers—especially the old Byzantine church now used as a stable. I picked up a bone there, and treasured it for months. It was human, I was convinced, and I wove many romances round the little brown relic-romances that considerably embittered the reality when I came to know it.

"What's that?" Alfred asked picking the bone from its resting place in cotton-wool in my corner drawer months afterwards.

"A human bone," I said gravely.

Alfred roared with aggravating laughter.

"It's only half a fowl's back—you little silly."

Ashamed and confused I flung the bone into the inmost recesses of the drawer, and assured him that he was mistaken. But he wasn't.

We went from Poitiers to Angoulème—how often in school I have got into trouble for tracing that route on the map of France when I should have been tracing Cap Griz Nez, or the course of the Rhone! And so, by easy, stages we reached Bordeaux.

Bordeaux was en fête—the great annual fair was in progress. The big market-place was covered with booths filled with the most fascinating objects.

I was very happy at Bordeaux until it occurred to some one to take me to see the mummies. After that, "Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content." And here I cannot resist the temptation to put a long parenthesis in my traveller's tale, and to write a little about what used to frighten me when I was little. And then I shall tell you about my first experience of learning French.