For myself, I enjoyed it all--the bitter cold, the short days, the rapid
exercise, the blazing fires within, and the glittering snow without. I
made snow-men and snow-castles to my heart's content. I learned to skate
with my father on the frozen ponds. I was never weary of admiring the
wintry landscape--the wide plains sheeted with silver; the purple
mountains peeping through brown vistas of bare forest; the nearer trees
standing out in featherlike tracery against the blue-green sky. To me it
was all beautiful; even more beautiful than in the radiant summertime.
Not so, however, was it with Monsieur Maurice. Racked by a severe cough
and unable to leave the house for weeks together, he suffered intensely all
the winter through. He suffered in body, and he suffered also in mind. I
could see that he was very sad, and that there were times when the burden
of life was almost more than he knew how to bear. He had brought with him,
as I have shown, certain things wherewith to alleviate the weariness of
captivity--books, music, drawing materials, and the like; but I soon
discovered that the books were his only solace, and that he never took up
pencil or guitar, unless for my amusement.
He wrote a great deal, however, and so consumed many a weary hour of the
twenty-four.
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