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Page 12
MERCEDES
When I was a child some one gave me a family of white mice. I don't
remember how old I was, I think about ten or eleven; but I remember
very clearly the day I received them. It must have been a Thursday, a
half-holiday, for I had come home from school rather early in the
afternoon. Alexandre, dear old ruddy round-faced Alexandre, who opened
the door for me, smiled in a way that seemed to announce, 'There's a
surprise in store for you, sir.' Then my mother smiled too, a smile, I
thought, of peculiar promise and interest. After I had kissed her she
said, 'Come into the dining-room. There's something you will like.'
Perhaps I concluded it would be something to eat. Anyhow, all agog
with curiosity, I followed her into the dining--room--and Alexandre
followed _me_, anxious to take part in the rejoicing. In the window
stood a big cage, enclosing the family of white mice.
I remember it as a very big cage indeed; no doubt I should find it
shrunken to quite moderate dimensions if I could see it again. There
were three generations of mice in it: a fat old couple, the founders
of the race, dozing phlegmatically on their laurels in a corner; then
a dozen medium-sized, slender mice, trim and youthful-looking, rushing
irrelevantly hither and thither, with funny inquisitive little faces;
and then a squirming mass of pink things, like caterpillars, that were
really infant mice, newborn. They didn't remain infants long, though.
In a few days they had put on virile togas of white fur, and were
scrambling about the cage and nibbling their food as independently as
their elders. The rapidity with which my mice multiplied and grew to
maturity was a constant source of astonishment to me. It seemed as if
every morning I found a new litter of young mice in the cage--though
how they had effected an entrance through the wire gauze that lined it
was a hopeless puzzle--and these would have become responsible,
self-supporting mice in no time.
My mother told me that somebody had sent me this soul-stirring
present from the country, and I dare say I was made to sit down and
write a letter of thanks. But I'm ashamed to own I can't remember who
the giver was. I have a vague notion that it was a lady, an elderly
maiden-lady--Mademoiselle ... something that began with P--who lived
near Tours, and who used to come to Paris once or twice a year, and
always brought me a box of prunes.
Alexandre carried the cage into my playroom, and set it up against the
wall. I stationed myself in front of it, and remained there all the
rest of the afternoon, gazing in, entranced. To watch their antics,
their comings and goings, their labours and amusements, to study their
shrewd, alert physiognomies, to wonder about their feelings, thoughts,
intentions, to try to divine the meaning of their busy twittering
language--it was such keen, deep delight. Of course I was an
anthropomorphist, and read a great deal of human nature into them;
otherwise it wouldn't have been such fun. I dragged myself reluctantly
away when I was called to dinner. It was hard that evening to apply
myself to my school-books. Before I went to bed I paid them a parting
visit; they were huddled together in their nest of cotton-wool,
sleeping soundly. And I was up at an unheard-of hour next morning, to
have a bout with them before going to school. I found Alexandre, in
his nightcap and long white apron, occupied with the _soins de
propret�_, as he said. He cleaned out the cage, put in fresh food and
water, and then, pointing to the fat old couple, the grandparents, who
stopped lazily a-bed, sitting up and rubbing their noses together,
whilst their juniors scampered merrily about their affairs, 'Tiens! On
dirait Monsieur et Madame Denis,' he cried. I felt the appositeness of
his allusion; and the old couple were forthwith officially denominated
Monsieur and Madame Denis, for their resemblance to the hero and
heroine of the song--though which was Monsieur, and which Madame, I'm
not sure that I ever clearly knew.
It was a little after this that I was taken for the first time in my
life to the play. I fancy the theatre must have been the Porte St.
Martin; at any rate, it was a theatre in the Boulevard, and towards
the East, for I remember the long drive we had to reach it And the
piece was _The Count of Monte Cristo_. In my memory the adventure
shines, of course, as a vague blur of light and joy; a child's first
visit to the play, and that play _The Count of Monte Cristo_! It was
all the breath-taking pleasantness of romance made visible, audible,
actual. A vague blur of light and joy, from which only two details
separate themselves. First, the prison scene, and an aged man, with a
long white beard, moving a great stone from the wall; then--the figure
of Mercedes. I went home terribly in love with Mercedes. Surely there
are no such _grandes passions_ in maturer life as those helpless,
inarticulate ones we burn in secret with, before our teens; surely we
never love again so violently, desperately, consumedly. Anyhow, I went
home terribly in love with Mercedes. And--do all children lack
humour?--I picked out the prettiest young ladyish-looking mouse in my
collection, cut off her moustaches, adopted her as my especial pet,
and called her by the name of my _dea cert�_.
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