Chapter 8
story eight of christmas stories from french and spanish writers by antoinette ogden story eight the poet's christmas eve from the spanish of pedro a de in a beautiful corner of andalusia lies a smiling valley god bless it for in that valley have i friends loves brothers parents el latigo i a good many years ago for i was then only seven my father came to me in the twilight of a winter's day when the three ave marias had been repeated to the sound of the church bells and said solemnly you need not go to bed with the chickens to-night pedro you are a big boy now and you ought to have a supper with your parents and your older brothers this is christmas eve i shall never forget the delight with which i heard these words i was not going to bed until late i cast a glance of commiseration and contempt upon my younger brothers and instantly fell to composing a description to be delivered at school on my return after twelfth night
of this my first adventure my first lark the first dissipation of my life two it was already las animas as they say in our village a certain hour of the evening when the ringing of the bells admonishes the faithful to pray for the souls in purgatory our village ninety leagues from madrid a thousand leagues from the world nestling in a fold of the sierra nevada i can almost fancy i see you brothers father and mother a huge oak log whistled and cracked in the fireplace we all sat together under the vault of the chimney my two grandmothers who spent that night with us presiding over the household ceremonies occupied the corner seats my father and mother sat next to them the rest of the place being occupied by the children and servants for on such an occasion we all represented the home and it seemed fitting that one fire should warm us all i remember however that our men remained standing and that our maids squatted or knelt their respectful humility forbade their occupying a chair
the cats slept in the centre of the circle their tails turned to the fire an occasional snowflake came fluttering down the chimney that elfin road and the wind moaned in the distance and spoke to us of the absent the poor the wayfarers my father and my eldest sister played on the harp and i accompanied them to their distress on a drum which i had contrived that very evening out of a broken water-jug do you know the song of the aguinados which is sung in the villages that lie east of the mohokanen well that was the music that constituted the concert the maid-servants took it upon themselves to render the vocal parts and they sang couplets to this effect to-night is christmas eve to-morrow is christmas day maria fetch the jug of wine let's be merry while we may and all was happiness and merry-making rusks butter-cakes pastes of nuts and honey sweetmeats made by the nuns risoli and cherry-brandy were freely passed around there was much talk of going to midnight mass to the nativity play at dawn to see the bethlehem manger which we boys had constructed in the tower and also of making sherbet out of the snow that carpeted the court
suddenly in the midst of this merriment i was struck by the deep meaning of these words sung by my paternal grandmother christmas comes christmas goes but soon we all shall be of those who come back never in spite of my tender age this couplet chilled my heart all the melancholy horizons of life seemed to have been unfolded before me in a flash it was a burst of intuition unnatural at my age it was a miraculous prescience the herald of the ineffable tedium of poetry it was my first inspiration i saw and understood at a glance with marvellous lucidity the inevitable fate of the three generations present it occurred to me that my grandparents my parents and my brothers were like a marching army whose vanguard was stepping into the grave while the rear-guard had not yet left the cradle and these three generations represented a century and all past centuries had been alike and ours would disappear as they had done and so would the centuries unborn christmas comes christmas goes such is the implacable monotony of time the pendulum oscillating in space the indifferent repetition of events in contrast with the brevity of our pilgrimage in this world
but soon we shall all be of those who come back never horrible thought cruel sentence the definite meaning of which was like a summons to me death beckoning me from the shadows of the future before my imagination a thousand christmas eves filed by a thousand hearths were extinguished a thousand families that had supped together ceased to exist other children other joys other songs lost forever the loves of my grandparents their antiquated mode of dress their remote youth the memories thereof that crowded upon them my parents childhood the first christmas celebration in our home all the happiness that had preceded me then i could imagine i could foresee a thousand more christmas-eves recurring periodically and robbing us of our life and hope future joys in which we should not all take part together my brothers scattered over the earth my parents naturally dying before us the twentieth century following upon the nineteenth the live coals turned to ashes my vanished youth my old age my grave my posthumous memory then the complete oblivion of me the indifference the ingratitude of my grandchildren
living of my blood and who would laugh and enjoy while the worms profaned the skull in which these very thoughts were now conceived the tears gushed from my eyes i was asked why i was crying and as i did not know or at least could not have defined the reason even to myself my father concluded that i was sleepy and i was accordingly sent to bed here was another motive for weeping and so it happened that my first philosophical tears and my last childish ones were mingled that night of insomnia which i spent listening to the joyous sounds of a celebration from which i had been excluded for being too much of a child as my parents believed then or too much of a man as i realize now was perhaps the bitterest of my life i must have fallen asleep at last however for i cannot remember whether the projects of going to midnight mass the nativity play and making sherbet out of the snow in the court fell through or not three where is my childhood i feel as though i had just been relating a dream
the world is wide after all my paternal grandmother the one who sang the couplet died a long time ago on the other hand my brothers have married and have children my father's harp unstrung and broken has been thrown among the cast-off furniture it has been many a christmas eve since i had supper at home my village has disappeared from the ocean of my life like the islet which the mariner leaves behind him i am no longer the same pedro the child that focus of ignorance curiosity and anguish trembling on the threshold of life i am nothing short of a man an inhabitant of madrid comfortably settled in life proud of my independence as a bachelor a novelist and a volunteer in the great orphanage of the capital with whiskers debts and loves when i compare myself now my perfect freedom my broad life the immense scene of my operations my early experience standing as i do revealed tuned like a grand piano on the night of a concert when i compare myself with all my boldness my ambitions my contempts with the little chap that played the drum fifteen years ago on christmas eve in a remote corner of andalusia
i smile i even laugh aloud with the feeling that it befits me while my lonely heart sheds pure tears of infinite melancholy which it carefully hides from view holy tears may providence frank you to the home where my father is growing old four well what shall it be for as the boys sing in the streets christmas eve christmas eve this is surely no night for sleep where shall i spend the evening fortunately i can choose let me see this is the twenty fourth of december eighteen fifty five we are in madrid we know the waiters of all the cafs by name we are hand in glove with the most applauded poets of the day the demigods of provincial amateurs we frequent theatres and see plays from the inside as it were the great actors and singers shake our hand behind the scenes we penetrate into the editors rooms and are initiated in the alchemy which produces newspapers we have seen the type-setter's fingers stained with the lead of words and the fingers of the author stained with the ink of thoughts we have free access to one of the tribunes of congress credit at the hotels there are social gatherings that appreciate us and tailors that endure us
we are happy our youthful ambition is satisfied we can enjoy this night we have conquered the world madrid is ours madrid is our home a cheer for madrid and you provincial youths who at nightfall on an autumn day sad and lonely unearth and air your impotent longings for the capital you who feel yourselves to be poets musicians painters orators who despise your village who will not speak to your parents who weep with the ambition and dream of suicide burst with envy all of you as we are now bursting with pleasure five two hours have passed it is nine o'clock i have money where shall i take supper my friends more fortunate than i will smother their loneliness in the clamour of an orgy night is of wine they said to me only a few moments ago but i would not be of them it has been some time now since i crossed this red sea of youth dry-footed night is of tears i said to them
those who compose our social gatherings are at the theatre the people of madrid celebrate the nativity of our lord by listening to the ranting of actors a few homes in which i am almost a stranger have offered me alms out of their domestic warmth in the form of an invitation to dinner for the old-fashioned supper has gone out of style but i would not accept that is not what i want what i long for is the pascal feast the christmas eve supper my home my relatives my traditions my memories the former joys of my soul the religion that was taught me when i was a child six ah madrid is an inn on a night like this we come to know what madrid is our capital is a floating population heterogeneous exotic which can only be compared to the population of a freeport of a jail of an insane asylum travelers journeying toward a future to the fantastic kingdom of ambition halt here as well as those who are journeying back from misery from crime
beauty comes here to marry or to sell itself the landed proprietor to squander his wealth the literati for glory the deputy to become a minister the worthless man for a government office the savant the inventor the comedian the giant the dwarf the man with an anomaly in his soul or in his body the monster with seven arms and three noses as well as the philosopher with double sight the charlatan the reformer the man who creates melodies the man who counterfeits bank-notes all spend some period of their life in the great inn those who attain notoriety those who find a purchaser those who have grown rich at the expense of themselves become in time the innkeepers the landlords the masters of madrid and forget the land of their birth but we the wayfarers the lodgers we realize to-night that madrid means exile that madrid is a bivouac a prison a purgatory for the first time in the year we feel that neither the caf the theatre the casino nor the hotel is our house more than that we realize that our house is not our home seven the home that sacred abode of the patriarch of the roman citizen of the feudal lord of the very arab
the holy arch of the penates temple of hospitality and altar of the family has completely disappeared in our great modern centres the home survives in the provinces alone there our house is our own in madrid it is generally the landlord's in the provinces our house shelters us for twenty thirty forty years at least in madrid one moose every month or at least every year our home has a physiognomy of its own which never varies ever kindly and sympathetic it grows old with us it bears the impress of our lives it preserves our footprints in madrid the exterior changes every leap year the apartments are arrayed in new garments that furniture is sold which our contact had consecrated at home the whole edifice is ours the grassy court the poultry-yard filled with chickens the high cheery terraces the deep well the children's terror the monumental tower the broad cool vine-covered summer-house here we occupy a half flat
paper-lined and divided into mean apartments with no view of the sky no sun no air there we have that neighbourly affection something between friendship and relationship which binds together all the families of one street here the man who moves about noisily above our heads is unknown to us neither do we know the man who dies beyond the partition of our alcove and whose death-rattle disturbs our sleep our provincial home is a cluster of memories of local attachments here the room in which we were born there the room where our brother died here the empty hall in which we played as children there the study in which we wrote our first verses on the chapter of a column in the trough of an old ceiling swallows have built their nests and every year the faithful couple fly over from africa to hatch a new brood in madrid all this is unknown and the hearth that consecrated stone cold in summer cold in our absence but warm and friendly during the happy winter evenings when all the children are brought together and grouped about the old people
for the colleges have their vacations the married daughters bring their little ones home on a visit and the absent ones the prodigal sons come home to the heart of the family where tell me where is this hearth in the houses of the capital can we call a french mantelpiece made of marble bronze and iron a hearth that which one can buy at a store at wholesale or retail and can even hire if need be the french mantelpiece is a symbol of home in a great city people of madrid that is your hearth a hearth subject to the changes of fashion a hearth which is sold when it is old which can be moved from room to room from street to street and which can even be pawned in an emergency eight i wandered through a street far above my head from a high story my grandmother's prophetic couplet floated down to me amid the shock of glasses the rattle of dishes and the merry laughter of girls christmas comes christmas goes but soon we all shall be of those who come back never
here thought i is a home a hearth with almond soup and a gilt head which i could buy for four dollars just then a woman came up to me begging she had two children one in her arms wrapped in her ravelled shawl the other clinging to her hand both were crying i thought the mother was crying too i do not know how i happen to be in this caf the clock strikes midnight the hour when the christ was born i am here alone in a boisterous crowd i have fallen to analyzing my life since i left my father's roof and for the first time i am horror-stricken at the painful struggle of the poet in madrid a struggle in which so much affection so much peace is sacrificed to a vain ambition i have watched the bards of the nineteenth century writing the local i have watched the muse scissors in hand making clippings i have seen men who in other ages would have written a national epic busily patching up editorials to rehabilitate a party and earn fifty dollars a month poor children of god poor poets antonio druba to whom i dedicate this article says i have found so many thorns on my journey
that my heart aches my soul aches and so much for my present christmas eve then i travel back in thought through the bygone years i am surely missed at home to-night and my mother shivers when the wind moans in the chimney as though those moans were my dying sighs and she says to the neighbours in such a year when he was with us or i wonder where he is now ah i cannot bear this i wave you a farewell from my soul dear ones i am ambitious i am an ingrate a bad brother a bad son how can i explain it a supernatural force leads me on whispering thou shalt be the voice of damnation that spoke to me in my very cradle and what pray am i to be poor wretch that i am soon we shall all be of those who come back never ah i do not want to go i shall not go i have struggled too hard to fail i shall return i will triumph in life and in death is there to be no compensation for the infinite anguish of my soul x it is very late and that couplet of the dead still rings in my brain christmas comes christmas goes but soon we shall all be of those who come back never yes yes other christmas eves will come thought i as a child and i dreamed of the future and built castles in the air i saw myself the centre of a family as yet unborn in the second twilight of life when the flowers of love come to fruit
that storm of love and tears which wrecks me now was past my head was at rest in the lap of patience crowned with the melancholy flowers of the last true affections i was husband a father the support of a home of a family the flame of an unknown hearth sparkled in the distance and in its vacillating light i saw strange beings that made me throb with pride they were my sons then i wept and i closed my eyes to prolong the vision of that reddish light and the prophetic apparition of the unborn the grave was near my locks were gray but what of that would not half of my life remain in these children of love would not half of my soul remain with their mother in vain did i try to recognize this wife who was to share the twilight of my life this future companion whom god holds for me sat with her back to me i could not see her face i looked for the reflection of her features in the faces of my sons but the light from the hearth began to fail when it was out i still saw her because i felt the warmth of her in my soul i murmured christmas comes christmas and i was asleep perhaps dead story
