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Mother’s Hands
by
How many there were who tried to draw her from memory! for she would not be photographed. It became a common pastime to draw her profile; some attained the greatest proficiency in the art. With a broomhandle in the snow, with a match in cigar ashes, with skates on the ice.
On the whole, it certainly was to the credit of the regiment that she should be so universally and unprecedentedly admired. Her uncle naturally believed that he was the cause of it, but the truth was that the way he advertised her would have spoiled the whole thing for any one else. She could endure the advertisement. And now he had been put aside, without himself understanding how it had happened. He, who on this day had organised the whole assembly, was standing quivering with eagerness to be abreast of the situation; but he could not. It all went on over his head, as though on the second storey. He spurred himself up with exaggerated gaiety, with abnormal energy, but he fell back, became superfluous, became actually in the way. His wife laughed openly at him; he, who when he was abroad had hidden his wedding-ring in his pocket, and was ready to do the same thing again, was left lying in a pocket himself, like an empty cigar-case.
His wife was enchanted. From the beginning she had been alarmed when his miracle of a niece was brought into the house. The ostentatious partiality with which he introduced her into society produced results which went beyond his previsions. The crowd of worshippers kept growing greater and denser; after the episode with the King the enthusiasm rose to a kind of frenzy for a time. The rate of speed grew with the number; the colonel struggled to keep up like a broken-winded horse.
The bell rings a second time, there is a movement in the crowd, renewed clanking of spurs and swords, waving of hands, vociferous greetings. The heroine of the hour saluted, waved farewell for the thousandth time, gay words were spoken, smiles and bows were rapidly dispensed with cheerful grace. She was quite equal to the situation! The large, checked travelling dress, the light hat with the veil now hanging down from it, now floating in the wind, the haughty poise of the head, the perfect figure, all this stood in the sunshine of the homage round her. Surely it was into a golden carriage drawn by white doves that she was stepping? For the moment, it was no farther than to her mother’s side at the open carriage-door, whence she smiled down to the colonel on one side, the general on the other, the ladies round them. Farther back still her eyes fell on all the uplifted moustaches, the light ones, the brown, the black, the dyed, the thin moustaches, the thick, the curved, and the inane, the drooping, the smartly curled. Among that melancholy and shaggy crowd a few clean-shaven faces looked like those of Swedish tenors.
“I hope you will have a pleasant journey,” said the old general. The gallant horseman was too discreet to try to say anything more marked. “Thank you for the pleasure you have given us this winter, my girl!” It was the colonel’s shrill voice. The bystanders should see what a fatherly comrade he could be. “Yes, I’ve often pitied you this winter, uncle,” was the answer he received. “Now you must have a thorough rest in the summer!”
The colonel’s wife laughed. It was the signal that all the rest must laugh.
The faces turned up towards her–most of them honest, good-natured, cheerful–almost every one of them reminded her of some amusing moment; an autumn and winter of riding-parties, skating, snow-shoeing, drives, balls, dinners, concerts; a wild dance over shining ice and drifting snow, or through a sea of light and music mingled with the ring of glasses, with laughter and animated talk. Not one of her recollections had anything unpleasant about it. All stood out clear, brilliant as a parade of cavalry. A few proposals, amongst others some initiated by her worthy uncle, had vanished like a crowd of motes. She felt a grateful happiness for what she had experienced, for every one’s goodness, till the very last moment. It overwhelmed her, it sparkled in her eyes, it shone in her eager manner, it was communicated to all those who stood beneath, and to the very flowers she held. But a feeling of having received too much, far too much, was there the whole time. Through it all a dread of future emptiness that gave her an unendurable pang. If only it were over!