Book of My Mother Read Online Free PDF

sure I would not inhibit the inspiration of the great man in the throes of scientific travail. I can see her now, charmed, excited, girlishly showing him to the door and blushing as she sought an assurance that her little boy was not seriously ill. And afterward, how she sped off to ask the chemist, a lower but nonetheless highly esteemed divinity, to prepare the elixirs which she expected would have an immediate effect. My mother attached such importance to medicines. She loved to cram me with her own remedies, to give me the benefit of them, and she would not rest until I had swallowed the lot. “This is very strong,” she would say as she handed me a new potion. In order to please her, even when I was grown up, I had to gulp down all kinds of remedies for all kinds of organs and tissues. She would watch me take them with rapt, almost stern, attention. Yes, my mother was a simple creature. But all that is good in me I owe to her. And, since I can do nothing else for you, Maman, I kiss my hand, which came from you.
    Your child died the day you did. Your death has suddenly transported me from childhood to old age. With you I had no need to pretend I was an adult. That is what lies in store for me now; I shall always have to pretend to be a grown-up, a serious person with responsibilities. I no longer have anyone to scold me if I eat too quickly or read too late into the night. I am no longer ten, and I can no longer play with cotton spools or stickers in a cozy room, far from the fog of the wintry street, near the yellow circle of the oil lamp and in your keeping, while studiously you sew and make sweet, vague, enchanting plans, poor creature born to be swindled.
    O my past, my early childhood! O my little room, cushions embroidered with reassuring kittens, virtuous color prints, comforts and cream buns, herb teas, cough sweets, arnica, gas burner in the kitchen, barley sugar, old lace, smells, mothballs, china night-lights, little bedtime kisses, kisses of Maman, who would say, after tucking me up in bed, that I was now going to take a little trip to the moon with my friend the squirrel! O my childhood, quince jelly, pink candles, illustrated Thursday papers, plush teddy bears, joys of convalescence, birthdays, New Year letters on jagged-edged notepaper, Christmas turkeys, fables of La Fontaine idiotically recited standing up on the dining-room table, brightly colored sweets, waiting for holidays, hoops, diabolos, grubby little hands, grazed knees and I always pulled off the scab too soon, fairground swings, the Cirque Alexandre, where she took me each year and I would dream of it months in advance, new exercise books for the new school year, imitation-leopard-skin satchel, Japanese pencil boxes, multi-tiered pencil boxes, Sergeant Major nibs, Blanzy Poure bayonet nibs, bread and chocolate for tea, cache of apricot pits, plant-collecting box, glass marbles, Maman’s songs, lessons which she made me revise each morning, hours spent watching her cook with ceremony, childhood, little scraps of peace, little scraps of happiness, Maman’s cakes, Maman’s smiles, all this I shall know no more, O charms, O dead sounds of the past, vanished smoke and withered seasons. The shores recede. My death draws near.

VIII
     
    W HEN I WAS EIGHTEEN I left Marseilles and went to Geneva, where I registered at the university and nymphs were kind to me. My mother was then quite alone. She was uprooted in Marseilles. She did have some relatives of a kind there, but they were excessively rich and invited her to their homes only to ram their opulence down her throat, boast of their grand connections, and ask patronizing questions about her husband’s modest business. After a few visits, she had stopped going to see them. Since her first heart attack, she had been unable to help my father in his work, so she spent most of the time alone in her flat. She saw no one, for she did not know how to make social contacts. In any case, the wives of my