The Blue Bird for Children Part 21

"For the last time?" stammered poor Tylo. "Are we to part from these poor Children?"

His grief was such that he was incapable of understanding anything.

"Yes," said Light. "The hour which you know of is at hand.... We are going to return to silence...."

Thereupon the Dog, suddenly realizing his misfortune, began to utter real howls of despair and fling himself upon the Children, whom he loaded with mad and violent caresses:

"No! No!" he cried. "I refuse!... I refuse!... I shall always talk!...

And I shall be very good.... You will keep me with you and I shall learn to read and write and play dominoes!... And I shall always be very clean.... And I shall never steal anything in the kitchen again...."

He went on his knees before the two Children, sobbing and entreating, and, when Tyltyl, with his eyes full of tears, remained silent, dear Tylo had a last magnificent idea: running up to the Cat, he offered, with smiles that looked like grins, to kiss her. Tylette, who did not possess his spirit of self-sacrifice, leaped back and took refuge by Mytyl's side. Then Mytyl said, innocently:

"You, Tylette, are the only one that hasn't kissed us yet."

The Cat put on a mincing tone:

"Children," said she, "I love you both as much as you deserve."

There was a pause.

"And now," said Light, "let me, in my turn, give you a last kiss...."

As she spoke, she spread her veil round them as if she would have wrapped them for the last time in her luminous might. Then she gave them each a long and loving kiss. Tyltyl and Mytyl hung on to her beseechingly:

"No, no, no, Light!" they cried. "Stay here with us!... Daddy won't mind.... We will tell Mummy how kind you have been.... Where will you go all alone?"...

"Not very far, my Children," said Light. "Over there to the Land of the Silence of Things."

"No, no," said Tyltyl. "I won't have you go...."

But Light quieted them with a motherly gesture and said words to them which they never forgot. Long after, when they were a grandfather and grandmother in their turn, Tyltyl and Mytyl still remembered them and used to repeat them to their grandchildren.

Here are Light's touching words:

"Listen, Tyltyl. Do not forget, child, that everything that you see in this world has neither beginning nor end. If you keep this thought in your heart and let it grow up with you, you will always, in all circ.u.mstances, know what to say, what to do and what to hope for."

And, when our two friends began to sob, she added, lovingly:

"Do not cry, my dear little ones.... I have not a voice like Water; I have only my brightness, which Man does not understand.... But I watch over him to the end of his days.... Never forget that I am speaking to you in every spreading moonbeam, in every twinkling star, in every dawn that rises, in every lamp that is lit, in every good and bright thought of your soul...."

At that moment, the grandfather's clock in the cottage struck eight o'clock. Light stopped for a moment and then, in a voice that grew suddenly fainter, whispered:

"Good-bye!... Good-bye!... The hour is striking!... Good-bye!"

Her veil faded away, her smile became paler, her eyes closed, her form vanished and, through their tears, the children saw nothing but a thin ray of light dying away at their feet. Then they turned to the others ... but these had disappeared....

CHAPTER X

THE AWAKENING

The grandfather's clock in Tyl the woodcutter's cottage had struck eight; and his two little Children, Tyltyl and Mytyl, were still asleep in their little beds. Mummy Tyl stood looking at them, with her arms akimbo and her ap.r.o.n tucked up, laughing and scolding in the same breath:

"I can't let them go on sleeping till mid-day," she said. "Come, get up, you little lazybones!"

But it was no use shaking them, kissing them or pulling the bed-clothes off them: they kept on falling back upon their pillows, with their noses pointing at the ceiling, their mouths wide open, their eyes shut and their cheeks all pink.

At last, after receiving a gentle thump in the ribs, Tyltyl opened one eye and murmured:

"What?... Light?... Where are you?... No, no, don't go away...."

"Light!" cried Mummy Tyl, laughing. "Why, of course, it's light....

Has been for ever so long!... What's the matter with you?... You look quite blinded...."

"Mummy!... Mummy!" said Tyltyl, rubbing his eyes. "It's you!..."

"Why, of course, it's I!... Why do you stare at me in that way?... Is my nose turned upside down, by any chance?"

Tyltyl was quite awake by this time and did not trouble to answer the question. He was beside himself with delight! It was ages and ages since he had seen his Mummy and he never tired of kissing her.

Mummy Tyl began to be uneasy. What could the matter be? Had her boy lost his senses? Here he was suddenly talking of a long journey in the company of the Fairy and Water and Milk and Sugar and Fire and Bread and Light! He made believe that he had been away a year!...

"But you haven't left the room!" cried Mummy Tyl, who was now nearly beside herself with fright. "I put you to bed last night and here you are this morning! It's Christmas Day: don't you hear the bells in the village?..."

"Of course, it's Christmas Day," said Tyltyl, obstinately, "seeing that I went away a year ago, on Christmas Eve!... You're not angry with me?... Did you feel very sad?... And what did Daddy say?..."

"Come, you're still asleep!" said Mummy Tyl, trying to take comfort.

"You've been dreaming!... Get up and put on your breeches and your little jacket...."

"Hullo, I've got my s.h.i.+rt on!" said Tyltyl.

And, leaping up, he knelt down on the bed and began to dress, while his mother kept on looking at him with a scared face.

The little boy rattled on:

"Ask Mytyl, if you don't believe me.... Oh, we have had such adventures!... We saw Grandad and Granny ... yes, in the Land of Memory ... it was on our way. They are dead, but they are quite well, aren't they, Mytyl?"

And Mytyl, who was now beginning to wake up, joined her brother in describing their visit to the grandparents and the fun which they had had with their little brothers and sisters.

This was too much for Mummy Tyl. She ran to the door of the cottage and called with all her might to her husband, who was working on the edge of the forest:

"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" she cried. "I shall lose them as I lost the others!... Do come!... Come quick...."

Daddy Tyl soon entered the cottage, with his axe in his hand; he listened to his wife's lamentations, while the two Children told the story of their adventures over again and asked him what he had done during the year.