the following morning at daybreak when i awoke, a noisy cadence, to which i was unaccustomed, fell upon my ears; the neighboring weaver had already commenced, even with the dawn, to work his ancient loom, and the musical to and fro of its shuttle had roused me. then after the first drowsy, dreamy moment i remembered, with overwhelming joy, that i was at my uncle's in the south; that this was the morning of the first day; that i had before me the prospect of a whole summer of out-of-door life and wildest liberty—had august and september, two months that at present pass as quickly as if they were but two days, but which then seemed of a fairly respectable duration. with a feeling of rapture, after i had wholly shaken off my sleep, i came into a full consciousness of myself and the realities of my life; i felt “joy at my waking.”
the preceding winter i had read a story of the indians of the great lakes, and one thing in it had impressed me so deeply that i always remembered it: an old indian chief, whose daughter was pining away because of her love for a white man, had finally consented to give her to the alien so that she might once more feel “joy at her waking.”
joy at her waking! indeed, for some time i had myself noticed that the moment of waking is always the one in which i had the most distinct and vivid impression of joy or sorrow; and it is then, at the waking hour, that one finds it so particularly painful to be without joy; my first little sorrows and remorses, my anxieties about the future, were the things that usually obtruded themselves cruelly—however the feeling of sadness vanished very quickly in those days.
at a later time i had very gloomy and sad awakenings. and there are times now when i have moments of terrifying clearness of vision during which i seem to see, if i may so express it, into the depths of life; it is at such moments that life presents itself to me without those pleasing mirages that during the day still delude me; during those moments i appear to have a more vivid realization of the rapid flight of the years, the crumbling away of all that i endeavor to hold to, i almost realize the final unimaginable nothingness, i see the bottomless pit of death, near at hand, no longer in any way disguised.
but that morning i had a joyful awaking, and unable to remain quietly in bed, i rose immediately. so impatient was i to be out that i scarcely took time to ask myself where i should begin my first day's round of visits.
i had all the nooks and corners of the village to see again, the gothic ramparts and the lovely river; and my uncle's garden to revisit, where probably, since last year, the rarest butterflies had become domiciled. i had visits to make to the ancient and curious houses in the neighborhood, where lived all the kind old women who, in the past summer, had lavished upon me their most luscious grapes as if they were my feudal due;—there was in particular a certain madame jeanne, a rich old peasant, who had taken so great a fancy to me that she liked to humor my every whim, and who, for my amusement, every time she passed on her way, like nausicaa, from the washing-place, looked comically out of the corner of her eyes towards my uncle's house. and, too, there were the surrounding vineyards, and woods, and mountain paths; and beyond, castelnau, rearing its battlements and towers above the pedestal of chestnuts and oak trees, called me to its ruins! where should i run first, and how could i ever weary of so beautiful a land!
the sea, to which i was now scarcely ever taken, was for the moment completely forgotten.
after these two happy months school was to re-open. i could not bear to think of it, but its monotony would be broken by a great event, the return of my brother. his four years were not quite completed; but we knew that he had already left the “mysterious island,” and we expected him to arrive home in october. for me it would be like becoming acquainted with a stranger. i was somewhat anxious to know whether he would love me when he met me, if he would approve of a thousand little things i did,—how, for instance, my way of playing beethoven would please him.
i thought constantly of his approaching arrival; i was so overjoyed, and i anticipated with so keen a delight the change his coming would make in my life, that i did not feel a particle of the melancholy which usually beset me in the autumn.
i meant to consult him about a thousand troublous matters, to confide to him all my anguish and uncertainty in regard to the future; i knew also that my parents depended upon him to give them definite advice about me, and expected him to direct me towards a scientific career: that was the one dark spot upon his return.
awaiting his dread decision, i threw aside all care and amused myself as gayly as possible; i put even less restraint than usual upon myself during the vacation which i regarded as likely to be the very last of my childhood.
