Yes, even the horrid Mimi I longed for. I longed for everything at home.
And poor Mamma!--The tears rushed to my eyes again. Yet even this mood
passed away before long.
XV -- CHILDHOOD
HAPPY, happy, never-returning time of childhood! How can we help loving
and dwelling upon its recollections? They cheer and elevate the soul,
and become to one a source of higher joys.
Sometimes, when dreaming of bygone days, I fancy that, tired out with
running about, I have sat down, as of old, in my high arm-chair by the
tea-table. It is late, and I have long since drunk my cup of milk. My
eyes are heavy with sleep as I sit there and listen. How could I not
listen, seeing that Mamma is speaking to somebody, and that the sound
of her voice is so melodious and kind? How much its echoes recall to
my heart! With my eyes veiled with drowsiness I gaze at her wistfully.
Suddenly she seems to grow smaller and smaller, and her face vanishes
to a point; yet I can still see it--can still see her as she looks at me
and smiles. Somehow it pleases me to see her grown so small. I blink and
blink, yet she looks no larger than a boy reflected in the pupil of an
eye. Then I rouse myself, and the picture fades. Once more I half-close
my eyes, and cast about to try and recall the dream, but it has gone.
I rise to my feet, only to fall back comfortably into the armchair.
'There! You are failing asleep again, little Nicolas,' says Mamma. 'You
had better go to by-by.'
'No, I won't go to sleep, Mamma,' I reply, though almost inaudibly, for
pleasant dreams are filling all my soul. The sound sleep of childhood is
weighing my eyelids down, and for a few moments I sink into slumber and
oblivion until awakened by some one. I feel in my sleep as though a
soft hand were caressing me. I know it by the touch, and, though still
dreaming, I seize hold of it and press it to my lips. Every one else has
gone to bed, and only one candle remains burning in the drawing-room.
Mamma has said that she herself will wake me. She sits down on the arm
of the chair in which I am asleep, with her soft hand stroking my hair,
and I hear her beloved, well-known voice say in my ear:
'Get up, my darling. It is time to go by-by.'
No envious gaze sees her now. She is not afraid to shed upon me the
whole of her tenderness and love. I do not wake up, yet I kiss and kiss
her hand.
'Get up, then, my angel.'
She passes her other arm round my neck, and her fingers tickle me as
they move across it. The room is quiet and in half-darkness, but the
tickling has touched my nerves and I begin to awake. Mamma is sitting
near me--that I can tell--and touching me; I can hear her voice and
feel her presence. This at last rouses me to spring up, to throw my arms
around her neck, to hide my head in her bosom, and to say with a sigh:
'Ah, dear, darling Mamma, how much I love you!'
She smiles her sad, enchanting smile, takes my head between her two
hands, kisses me on the forehead, and lifts me on to her lap.
'Do you love me so much, then?' she says. Then, after a few moments'
silence, she continues: 'And you must love me always, and never forget
me. If your Mamma should no longer be here, will you promise never to
forget her--never, Nicolinka? and she kisses me more fondly than ever.
'Oh, but you must not speak so, darling Mamma, my own darling Mamma!'
I exclaim as I clasp her knees, and tears of joy and love fall from my
eyes.
How, after scenes like this, I would go upstairs, and stand before the
ikons, and say with a rapturous feeling, 'God bless Papa and Mamma!' and
repeat a prayer for my beloved mother which my childish lips had learnt
to lisp-the love of God and of her blending strangely in a single
