CHAPTER XII.
I wish now to speak of the anguish caused by a story that was read to
me. (I seldom read for myself, and in fact I disliked books very
much.)
A very disobedient little boy who had run away from his family and his
native land, years later, after the death of his parents and his
sister, returned alone to visit his parental home. This took place in
November, and naturally the author described the dull gray sky and
spoke of the bleak wind that blew the few remaining leaves from the
trees.
In a deserted garden, in an arbor stripped of all its green, the
prodigal son in stooping down found among the autumn leaves a bluish
bead that had lain there since the time he had played in the bower
with his sister.
Oh! at that point I begged them to cease reading, for I felt the sobs
coming. I could see, see vividly, that solitary garden, that leafless
old arbor, and half-hidden under the reddish leaves I saw that blue
bead, souvenir of the dead sister. . . . It depressed me dreadfully
and gave me a conception of that inevitable fading away of everything
and every one, of the great universal change that comes to all.
It is strange that my tenderly guarded infancy should have been so
full of sad emotions and morbid reflections.
I am sure that the sad days and happenings were rare, and that I lived
the joyous and careless life of other children; but just because the
happy days were so habitual to me they made no impression upon my
mind, and I can no longer recall them.
My memories of the summer time are so similar that they break with the
splendor of the sun into the dark places and things of my mind.
And always the great heat, the deep blue skies, the sparkling sand of
the beach and the flood of light upon the white lime walls of the
cottages of the little villages upon the "Island" induced in me a
melancholy and sleepiness which I afterwards experienced with even
greater intensity in the land of the Turk.
