WHITE

Cet unanime blanc conflit d’une guirlande avec la même.

S. Mallarmé.

Once upon a time there were two children of the same age—a little boy and a little girl. They were exceedingly fond of each other, were never happy unless together, and there was something tender about their games. At hide and seek, when the little girl had been caught, she would drop into the arms of her companion, throw back her head, lower her lashes, purse her lips; and if the kisses did not rain down, she would demand them, or go to seek them by graciously raising her lips to the other pair of distrait or timid lips. They had just passed their tenth year.

One very warm day they rolled down their stockings to go wading in the brook. They got very wet and lay down to dry upon the warm grass, in the sun. The sight of their little pink legs, however, and of their dripping knees excited their curiosity. They made comparisons, and the little boy was wise enough to adjudge his skin the less smooth. “It is also less soft,” he said; and his hands went in company of his eyes.

They began anew the next day, and each day they read more. Their kisses, now, were companioned by sweet caresses that sent the blood swirling to their heads. But the very next instant they had already forgotten this and their innocence burst into laughter. They were happy.

With the coming of the first cold weather and the rain, they transferred their games to a large, half empty room that was left to them. The little boy, who went to school, would spend all his spare time at his friend’s. The little girl received her instruction at home. Upon certain days when the weather was bad the little boy would take his lessons with her. Their parents, with an eye to the future, observed this childish tenderness of the two pupils with great pleasure.

Towards the month of December a curate came to the house and was led by the mother to the large room in which the children were playing. An armchair and a footstool were brought for him. He sat down, took out his snuff-box, wiped his lips, sniffed a generous pinch and spoke of the good Lord. This subject was already known to him, but the little girl grew attentive when the priest, turning toward her, addressed her thus:

“My child, you will soon, I hope, make the acquaintance of your Creator. You know how much he loves you, and you love him, too. Pure hearts always love the good Lord. But real love demands closer intimacy and more abandon. Jesus will come to you and you will surrender to him confidently. You will feel the sacred embraces of your Creator. In a word, my dear little girl, we are going to prepare you for your first communion.”

“And what about me?” asked the little boy.

“Listen,” said the priest, “and profit duly by my words. You know,” he continued, turning back to the little girl, “the great importance of such an act. The catechism has instructed you in the grandeur of the sacrament. What a mystery is the union of the Creator and the created! This union is effected by the eucharistic communion and it brings to those beings who know how to prepare for it and make themselves worthy of it all the ineffable joys of divine love....”

He spoke for a long time, and the coldness of his speech contrasted with the exaltation of the sentiments that he expressed. At every moment he would unfold a large red, very dirty handkerchief, open his snuff-box, take a pinch, hawk and sneeze. The little girl understood nothing of the great words of love uttered by this old automaton; still, he spoke of love and this word, even in such a mouth, charmed her and made her shudder a little.

Her confessor had not yet questioned her upon the sixth commandment, but, upon the approach of the great day, he abandoned his reserve or his indifference. His very precise questions, which for the rest conformed to the manuals of devotion, interested the little girl deeply. Upon reflection she became heartbroken. So all those nice things were sins. Those games, those kisses, those touches, those caresses—sins! The priest taught her, then, only this—that without realizing it she had ceased to be innocent.

One afternoon she refused her friend’s kiss and, with no further explanation, went to a corner of the room and sank to her knees. Then she took a book and read: “Let us faithfully remove all obstacles that might impede the arrival of Jesus into us. Let us prepare for Him a pure sanctuary, adorned and aglow with love; and when He shall have come, we will be able to say to Him, in the fervor of our joy: ‘My well-beloved is mine, he has reposed upon my heart.’....”

She had uttered these words aloud. The little boy heard them and asked, through tears:

“It’s no longer I whom you love?”

“You can’t understand those things. I love you as my brother and as my little friend; I have a deep affection for you, but my love belongs to Jesus.”

“To Jesus!”

He shrugged his shoulders in peevish chagrin.

“Jesus loves me. How then can I not love Him? He courts me; how then resist Him? Don’t you know that He is all-powerful and that He can pulverize the both of us on the spot?”

“Really?”

Overwhelmed, he meditated upon this Stranger, so strong and so cruel, who had come to bear off his friend and to break his heart.

“Ah! Let Him kill me, but let him not take you away!”

“He won’t take me away. Did He take away Angéle, Laure, Juliette, whom He loved so much a year ago and who are all still so happy with Him?”

“Then He won’t love you always?”

“He will love me always, but from afar, and I, too, shall love Him. But I’m not the only one on earth and He must enter the hearts of all little girls who take their first communion.”

“Does He enter the hearts of little boys, too?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied in ironic tones. “He can offer to little boys only a good, firm friendship.”

“As for me, I’ll never love Him.”

“You’ll be compelled to love Him, when you’ll have a pure heart, you’ll see.”

“Ah!”

“Now, I have a pure heart, I’ve confessed all my sins!”

“What sins!”

“Silence, and ask pardon of God.”

She renewed her prayers.

Her friend meditated.

Little boys, less early developed, generally take their first communion a year later than little girls of their age. This was a custom; he did not feel humiliated by it. Nevertheless, he would have liked very much to share in the mysteries into which his friend was about to be initiated. He felt a mingled jealousy and fear.

“I only hope,” he told himself, “that He does her no harm!”

At last the great day arrived. He saw his little friend pale and winsome in a cloud of muslin. These two whitenesses were charming. Drawing near to her, he murmured:

“How I love you!”

She lowered her eyes and rolled in her white-gloved fingers the beads of her mother-of-pearl chaplet. She walked on without answer, without so much as looking at him. He was sad throughout the ceremony. The recital of acts stirred him a trifle, but at the sound of his friend’s voice his heart broke:

“Oh, my sole possession, my treasure, my life, my paradise, my love, my All, I wish to receive You with a heart aflame with love.... Oh, my treasure, I wish to live and die in a continual union with You!... My well-beloved has given Himself all to me I give myself likewise all to Him. Oh, my Jesus, I desire no longer to belong to myself. I would be yours alone. Let my senses belong to You and may they no longer serve for aught but to give You pleasure....”

“Ungrateful wretch!” he thought. He stirred with anger. Then he recalled the charming hours spent with his friend—their games, their laughter, those long kisses that put them out of breath, those embraces out of which they came blushing, with scorching skin and moist eyes....

“And now all these pleasures she is to give to another! And I’m left all alone.... She loves me no more....”

The little girl had the honor of speaking again after the communion. She returned to her place, the first one in the white procession, kneeled with her head in her hands and remained for a long time absorbed. A powerful emotion crushed her. She felt at once grieved and happy:

“He is within me, I feel Him in my heart.... My heart swells.... I stifle, but it is with happiness.... I am beloved, I am beloved.... Is it Thou, my love? Oh! Stay in my arms, clasp me tightly yet again! Ah! I feel bad.... My head is in a whirl.... Ah! Ah! What a feeling! Now I will declare my love for Him unafraid. I am well content, deeply proud.... Thou lovest me, say? He loves me.”

She arose and spoke:

“Oh loving Savior, I have given myself to You and You have given Yourself to me. I wish to sacrifice to You all the pleasures of the earth; I sacrifice to you my body, my soul, my will. I have only these to offer You, alas! If I had more, I would give You more. I would gladly die for you.... Kindle me with Your love! But I am not satisfied with a spark, I want a flame, I want a thousand flames, I want a conflagration that shall on the instant destroy within me all attachment to earthly creatures.... Vain creatures, leave me; you will never again behold me. Ask no more for my affection. My heart belongs entirely to my well-beloved....”

“She loves me no more,” he said to himself. “She will never love me again.”

He wept. The persons near him believed that it was through pious emotion.

At last mass was over and the seats were heard to move about on the lower floor of the church. The little girl who had been reborn through love felt likewise devoured by hunger. Then she began to think of her house, her parents, her friend, the beautiful table set for the celebration, aglitter with flowers, with crystal and silver; she thought of the kitchen, of the cook. Surely a good plate of soup was getting cold for her.

“After that, I’ll eat a nice tart.... My friend will be there, eager to serve me attentively.... I love him so.... While waiting for vespers we’ll take a stroll, we’ll pick flowers, only white flowers, as white as my veil, as my heart. I’m so happy!”

The little boy had run to his friend’s house, where his family was dining that day. He had gone to notify the cook, and, in the pantry, on a corner of the table, there had been laid aside specially two plates of soup, two royal patties and two glasses of wine.

When the little girl arrived he took her by the hand and she let him pull her along. At the sight of the dainty banquet her little feminine heart melted with tenderness. She threw herself around the little boy’s neck and hugging him with all her might, said:

“You know, Jesus is my mystic husband, but that isn’t going to last long. While he loves me, tell me what you want, for He’ll refuse his little wife nothing.”

“I want you to love me as before.”

“Here,” she said.

She gave him her lips.

“Are you satisfied? Let’s eat, now. I’m as hungry as a bear.”