WE were at Quimper when bonne maman died. She had been failing for some time, and her character, until then so gentle, had altered. Mere trifles disquieted her, and she became fretful, alarmed, and even impatient. She seemed so little in her big bed, and, when I wanted to climb up beside her, after my wont, she signed to Jeannie to take me away and said that it tired her too much to see children and that the air of a sick-room was not good for them. "Tell my daughter–tell her. They must not come!" she repeated several times in a strange, shrill voice. I slid down from the bed, I remember, abashed and disconcerted, and while I longed to see my dear bonne maman as I had known her, I was afraid of this changed bonne maman; and it hurt me more for her than for myself that she should be so changed.
But one day when maman was in the room, she caught sight of me hanging about furtively in the passage, and called out gently to me to go away, that bonne maman was tired and was going to sleep. Then a poor little voice, no longer shrill, very trembling, came from the bed, saying: "Let her come, Eliane. It will not hurt me. I want to see her for a moment."
I approached the bed, walking on tiptoe; the curtains were drawn to shade bonne maman from the sunlight, and I softly came and stood within them. O my poor bonne maman! I could hardly recognize her. She seemed old–old and shrunken, and her eyes no longer smiled. She looked at me so fixedly that I was frightened, and she said to maman:
"Lift her up on the bed. I want to kiss her." She took my hand then, and looked at my little finger as she always used to do, and said: "I see that you have been very good with your mother, but that you don't obey your nurse. You must always be obedient. You understand me, don't you, Sophie? Do you say your prayers?"
"Yes, bonne maman," I answered.
"Have you said them this morning?"
"No, bonne maman."
"Say them now."
I made the sign of the cross and said the following prayer, which I repeated morning and evening every day, and with slightly altered nomenclature, my children and grandchildren have repeated, as I did, until the age of reason: "Mon Dieu, bless me and bless and preserve grand-père, bonne maman, maman, papa, my sisters, my brother, Tiny" [this was my little dog], "Ghislaine, France, Kerandraon, all my family, and make me very good. Amen." When I had finished, bonne maman drew me gently to her, pressed me in her arms, and kissed me on my eyes.
After this, for how many days I do not remember, everything became very still in the house. The servants whispered when they had to speak, and the older people, when they met us, told us gently to go into the garden and to be very quiet. We did not see maman or papa at all. My tante de Laisieu was with us, and dear France. Bon papa arrived from Paris. One morning was very sunny and beautiful, and as I played with Eliane in the garden I forgot the oppression that weighed upon us and began to sing to her a Breton song which Jeannie had taught me. These were the words:
Le Roy vient demain au château,While I sang I looked up at bonne maman's window, for I knew how fond she was of hearing me. The window was shut, and this was unusual; so I sang the louder, that she should hear me, of Fleurette and le Roy. Then France and one of the servants came running out of the house, and I saw that both had been crying, and France put his arm about me while the servant said, "Mademoiselle must not sing." And France whispered: "You will wake bonne maman. Go into the orchard, dear Sophie. There you will not be heard." In the evening papa came for us in the nursery, and I saw that he, too, had been crying. I had never before seen tears in his dear eyes. He took us up to maman's room. All the blinds were drawn down, but I could see her lying on her bed, in her white woolen peignoir, her arms crossed behind her head, her black jet rosary lying along the sheet beside her. We kissed her, one after the other, and I saw the great tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Ecoute moi bien, ma Fleurette,
Tu regarderas bien son aigrette!"
"Je regarderai," dit Fleurette,
"Pour bien reconnaître le Roy!
Mes yeux ne verront que toi,
Et mon coeur n'aimera que toi."
"Maman –is bonne maman very ill?" I whispered. I felt that something terrible had happened to us all.
"My little girl," said maman, "your poor bonne maman does not suffer any more. She is very happy now with the angels and le bon Dieu," but maman was sobbing as she spoke.
I knew death only as it had come to one of my little birds that lived in the round cage hung in the nursery-window, and I was very much frightened when papa said: "I am going to take Sophie to your mother's room, Eliane. She is old enough to understand." But I went with him obediently, holding his hand. Outside bonne maman's door he paused and stooped to kiss me and said: "I know how much you loved your bonne maman, Sophie, and I want you to say good-by to her, for you will never see her again. She loved you so much, my little darling, and you shall be the last one to kiss her." The room was all black, and in the middle stood the bed. Beside it, on a table, a little chapelle had been made with a great silver cross and candelabra with lighted tapers. A bunch of fresh box stood in a goblet of holy water. Bonne maman lay with her arms stretched out before her, the hands clasped on her black wooden crucifix with a silver Christ that had always hung upon her wall. Her hair was not dressed, but drawn up from her forehead and covered with a mantilla of white silk Spanish lace, which fell down over her shoulders on each side. I stood beside her holding papa's hand. Her profile was sharply cut against the blackness, and I had never before seen how beautiful it was. Her eyes were closed, and she smiled tranquilly. I felt no longer any fear; but when papa lifted me in his arms so that I might kiss bonne maman and my lips touched her forehead, a great shock went through me. How cold her forehead was! O my poor bonne maman! Even now, after all the lusters that have passed over me, I feel the cold of that last kiss.
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