XXXVIII. MY PARENTS’ DEVOTION TO ME.

When I first became one of Miss Porquet’s pupils, The Count had taunted me with the poverty of my parents. This idea once put into my head made me reflect upon many circumstances which I should have allowed to pass unnoticed had it not been there.

One evening, I remember, I came home from school earlier than usual as I was not feeling well, and I found my father and mother at dinner. To my astonishment I found it consisted only of soup and salad! I understood now why I had always dined alone: my dinner was always substantial and most abundant. My father and mother stinted themselves for my sake, and wished to hide from me that they did so.

My father’s half-pay as a retired officer was all we had to live upon, and part of that was devoted to helping a friend of his who was in difficulties.

I was deeply touched; but I dared not make any remarks upon what I had seen: first of all I should not have known how to express my feelings; but my love and respect for my father and mother increased each day that I lived.

Sometimes in the evening, while I was learning my lessons for next day, at the table close to the little lamp, my father, who would be seated near me, would fall asleep over his newspaper, and his head lean more and more forwards as he slept. I remember one night in particular that he did so, and I then noticed that he had two great hollows at his temples, and that he had two deep lines down his cheeks. I felt heartbroken! My father was growing thin, and it was because he stinted himself in everything for my sake! I forgot my lessons, and I sat staring at my father as if I could never turn my eyes away from him.

Suddenly he woke up, and lifting his head, looked at me with surprise, and asked me what I was thinking about.

“Nothing, papa,” I replied, turning very red; and I stooped over my lesson-book and appeared to be working very hard.

If I had dared I would have thrown my arms round my father’s neck and have told him how I loved him, how I thanked him, yet how grieved I was.

Sometimes at night, when I had been in bed and asleep for some hours, I would awake suddenly. I would feel that I had slept a long time, and that it was very late; yet, through the door which led into my mother and father’s room and which stood ajar, I could see a light burning, and by that light I could always see my dear mother seated at a table, working, mending the household linen, and making or mending my clothes or my father’s. Then I would cough gently, and my mother coming to my bedside would ask me if I did not feel well or had been dreaming; then how I used to throw my arms round her neck and kiss her, twenty times, one after the other, and tell her how I loved her with all my heart.