Julius Read Free Page B

laughed loudly as they laughed, he straddled his legs apart as Grandpère did, he stuck out his little stomach, and glancing triumphantly in the direction of Père he jerked his thumb to his nose and spat. ‘Jew,’ he said, ‘you Jew.’ Then Grandpère picked him up on his lap, his vast shoulders heaving in merriment, and he danced the boy up and down on his knee, while Mère stood beside him, her hands on her hips, her cheeks bulging with the sweets she sucked first and then gave to the child, and Julius screamed in delight and turned his face away so that he should not see the strange white face of Père in his corner, who had not said a word, who stared at him with his burning black eyes, who made him feel ashamed.
    He had tried to show off before Père, he had wished to prove to him in triumph that he was a Blançard, that he was not a Lévy, not a Jew, but in his child’s heart he knew he had failed. His laughter and his rudeness had gone for nothing, he had not won after all, he, and Grandpère and Mère were coarse, gross creatures for whom his cheek burned in humiliation, and Père, silent, aloof, his thin nostrils quivering in contempt - he had won.
    ‘Let me down, Grandpère, I’m tired. I don’t want to play any more,’ he whispered, his voice fretful, his heart sick and his belly too from the sweets he had eaten, and they put him down to grub on the floor.When they were not looking he edged nearer to the bench where Père sat in the corner, and slowly he leant against his knee, waiting for the hand to stroke his hair softly, gently, in the way he did; and clasping his knee he stared up into the face of Père, who stared back at him, and losing himself in the strange depths of those dark eyes, he was lifted up to another world that the Blançards could never know.
    Suddenly, without warning, these moods would come upon him, and he would sit quite still, his chin propped on his fist, his eyes staring straight before him, and ‘What are you dreaming, you creature?’ scolded Mère, and ‘Come and play,’ called Grandpère, but they could do nothing with him.
    ‘Leave me, I don’t want to play,’ said Julius, his lips pressed together, and in these moments he knew he was greater than they, he knew that the Blançards were only people, and he was someone apart, taller than before, someone who stood alone with Père, scornful of the pitiful world, someone who lived with dreams, and beauty and enchantment, who conquered by silence, who dwelt in a secret city - a Lévy, a Jew.
     
    When he was four years old, life began to develop day by day in regularity, up to that time it had been a question of eating and drinking, petting, scolding and sleeping, but now life was shown to him from its true angle, the business of produce, of buying and selling. Five days a week the Blançards sold at the market. Because of this Julius was clothed and fed, and slept in a warm bed. That much he had learnt. And now, the market took the biggest place in his mind, it looked larger than the drab home at Puteaux, it meant life, and the world, it meant the land beyond the bridge. Every evening of the five days Julius would be awakened at midnight by the light of the candle, and see the figure of Père drawing on his trousers, while Mère talked in a low whisper, shading the child’s eyes from the light; and outside on the cobbled stones came the sound of hoofs, and the wheels of a cart, and Grandpère stamping up and down to keep warm, whistling to his horse, blowing upon his hands, calling to the closed window, ‘Are you coming, Paul? You lazy hound, you sluggard - can’t you leave your wife in peace?’
    And in a moment or so the candle would be blown, and Père himself stumble from the room, and later the cart would rumble away down the street, Grandpère cracking his whip, urging the animal forward with his hoarse, rough voice. Julius closed his eyes once more, pressing next to his mother, glad that he had her alone with