A Christmas Story from the French of M. Jules Lemaitre.
"Tell me again, Suzon! How beautiful the mid-night Mass is. Tell me again!"
It was Christmas Eve. Pierrot's parents had just returned from the fields. The wife was milking the cows, her husband was laying his tools in the barn; and Pierrot, while waiting for supper was seated on his little stool face to face with his sister Suzon in the chimney corner.
He was stretching his little hands towards the clear fire-light. They were pink, as was his chubby face, and his hair was golden. Suzon was demurely knitting a blue woollen stocking. A saucepan was bubbling above the wood fire and its lid was letting out a vapour with a strong odour of cabbages.
"Tell me again, Suzon, how beautiful it is!"
"Oh!" said Suzon, "there are so many lovely waxen lights that one might think oneself in heaven. And then, they chant the Psalms so beautifully, oh so beautifully! And there is the infant Jesus - I can't tell you how splendid his clothes are - lying on the straw, and the Holy Mother in a blue robe and Saint Joseph in red with his saw; and the shepherds with lots of sheep. And then, there are the cow and the donkey, and the Kings of the Magi dressed like soldiers. They have long beards and they are bringing things to Jesus, oh! such things! And the shepherds, they are bringing black pudding. And they and the Kings and M. le Cure and the donkey and the cow and the choir-boys and the sheep are all asking the infant Jesus for his blessing. And there are angels, to which are bringing the infant Jesus starts, beautiful golden stars!"
Last year, Suzon had been to the mid-night Mass and probably she really thought that she had seen all that she was now telling to Pierrot. The little boy listened with an air of wrapt attention, and said, when his sister had finished,
"I want to go to the mid-night Mass."
"You are too little" said his mother, who entered just then. "You shall go when you are big like Suzon."
"I want to", said Pierrot frowning.
"But, my little boy, the Church is too far off and it is snowing out of doors. If you are good and go to sleep when you are put to bed, you shall hear the mid-night Mass in the Lady Chapel without getting out of your bed."
"I want to go", repeated Pierrot, clenching his little fists.
"Who is it says 'I want'?" said a gruff voice. It was his father's. The child said no more. He was wise enough to know that it is best to obey when one cannot do otherwise.
They all drew round the supper table, but Pierrot had no appetite and preserved a dreamy silence.
"Suzon, go and put your little brother to bed."
Suzon led Pierrot into the red-tiled sleeping-room where there were a wardrobe and a marble-topped chest of drawers. Some of Suzon's work was on the walls. On a square piece of canvas she had worked with red and blue cotton all the letters of the alphabet and imitations also of a flower-pot, a church-steeple and a cat. At the foot of her parents' bed was a rug bright with what were meant to be patterns of roses, but which in reality looked more like peonies and cabbages; and close to the were the white curtained cots of the brother and sister.
Having put the child to bed and carefully tucked him in, Suzon's good-night words, as she closed his curtains, were:
"You will see how beautiful the midnight Mass in the Chapel is."
But Pierrot did not answer.
He did not go to sleep. He did not wish to and there he lay with his large eyes open.
He listened to the coming and going of his father and mother in the kitchen, then he heard Suzon's shrill voice as she tried to read aloud from an old almanac about the crimes of the robber band of Orgeres. At one time he thought they were all eating chestnuts and his heart became heavier still. Then his mother came into the bedroom and drew back his curtains and bent over him. But he closed his eyes and lay still. Then he heard them shutting up for the night and then all became quiet.
Pierrot got out of his cot. He fumbled for his clothes in the dark. It was a long business. He found his trousers and his blouse but not his little woven vest. He put on the blouse inside out, and as buttoning it hurt his little fingers he left buttonholes vacant. He could only find one of his stockings and pulled it on all crookedly so that the heel got into such a lump that the little badly covered foot would not more than half go into one of the little wooden sabots, while the foot that paddled in the other was bare.
By means of groping and stumbling he at last found the door and then walked across the kitchen into which the clear moonlight was streaming through the un-curtained windows. With childish cunning, Pierrot made no attempt to pass through the door which faced the street and was locked. He opened another which led out from the kitchen to the stable. A cow stirred in its litter. A goat got up and straining at its tether, came forward to lick Pierrot's hands making at the same time a low plaintive bleating. It seemed to him to be saying " Stay here with us where it is nice and warm. What can such a little one as you be thinking of to be going out into the cold, cold snow?"
The cobwebbed skylight in the roof afforded just enough light for the boy to see the inner bolt of the stable-door. By standing on tip-toe he just managed to reach up to it and push it back. Then he passed out into the cold snow and the chill, freezing night.
The house of Pierrot's parents was on low-lying ground more than half a mile from the Church. To go from the one to the other, one had first to follow a shepherd's track and then to turn to the right, and there was the Church straight in front.
Pierrot began to make for it without a moment's hesitation. Everything was white with snow. The apple-trees were as white as if they had been covered with washed linen. And the snow flakes whirled and twirled hither and thither like chaff out of a winnowing basket.
Pierrot plunged ankle-deep into the snow, his little sabots became clogged with it directly, and the falling flakes powdered his hair and shoulders. But he did not heed them, for he was thinking how he should soon see in a great golden light, the infant Jesus, the Virgin Mother, the three Magi Kings and the angels with stars in their hands.
On, on he went as drawn forward by the sight he was to behold. But he could not now walk as quickly as at the outset. The snow was blinding him. It shut out the sky from him with a great white cloud. He could no longer make out any familiar objects nor tell where he was.
His little feet began to weigh him down like lead; his hands, his nose and ears were tingling and paining him. The snow went down his neck, and his blouse and shirt were soaked through and through.
He tripped over a stone and off came one of his sabots. He went down on his knees in the snow and search fruitlessly for it with his poor, benumbed hands.
And now, he had no longer any vision of the infant Jesus, nor the Holy Mother, nor the Magi Kings, nor any of the angels carrying bright stars. The silence made him afraid, and so did the great trees, which were ghost-like in their whiteness. His heart filled with terror. He wept and cried out between his sobs "Mother! Mother!" The snow ceased to fall. Pierrot gazing upward, saw the tall pointed steeple, and a bright light coming through the windows of the Church.
Then all his vision came back to him, and his courage returned.
There! There! were the longed for wonders, the beautiful heavenly sights!
He gave up every attempt to keep to the path and made straight for the Church with its glowing lights. He slipped and rolled over into a ditch, fell sprawling on a tree-stump and lost his remaining sabot.
Struggling across the fields, the child dragged on with laboured steps, his eyes fixed on the light. Slower and slower became his steps and his foot-prints closer and closer together in the great white track.
The tall Church was near now. Pierrot could hear the voices singing: "Come, Saviour Devine!"
With outstretched hands and eyes dilated with ecstacy, sustained by the thought of the beauty of his vision, which was now to be realised, he entered the graveyard which surrounded the Church. The great arched window above the entrance glowed with a radiance of light.
Something wonderful was going on inside. Voices were singing:
"Now I hear on earth below Angels from the heavens above."
Little Pierrot stumbled forward, striving with all his remaining strength to get nearer to that glory of song.
Suddenly he fell at the foot of an old box-tree, which the snow completely shrouded. He closed his eyes, for sleep was overcoming him and he smiled as he heard the angel song, which the voices took up anew with: "He is born, the Christ Devine!"
At the same moment the snow-flakes began to fall again, softly and silently. The little body lay buried under the soft, thick snow covering.
And that was how Pierrot heard the mid-night Mass in the Lady Chapel.