Show MY OLD SHOES my dear albert you seem astonished evey time you come into my room to have a friendly chat with me and receive advice on your little private affairs at seeing upon my mantle this old pair of shoes whose presence in that place of honor has made you laugh so much and which caused you and my comrades to laugh at me so much yesterday evening ah you are astonished dished because I 1 know that you smile you seem uneasy because you are caught in fault let your astonishment cease a little bird who knows all has told it to me but since you are so inquisitive Qu listen and then you will be able abbe to judge it if I 1 am wrong or right to keep these shoes in that place well my narration do not laugh dont ridicule me if at times I 1 should appear simple listen to everything and I 1 hope then that when you shall be in company with others you will not as you did last night cast the first stone atone at me I 1 when my grandmother was dying she called the whole family to her bed side aide to one she gave her gold chain to another a piece of property to a third she extended her rings to me finallY although I 1 wets was the one she loved most she left amidst the general astonishment ment the last pair of shoes which she had worn the very ones you can see there my dear friend upon this mantel and that were yet under the foot of 0 the bed everyone joked about the present and considered me disinherited but 1 I 1 I so dearly loved my grandmother that I 1 left the death chamber pressing over my heart these old shoes that I 1 would not have exchanged for anything else 11 poor shoes they recalled many things thing s to me first they brought back into my ears ean the sound of my grand grandmothers moth ers footsteps when each morning she used to come to awake me they awakened in my memory the days when I 1 had lia d been deprived of dessert and had been sent to bed alone without light in my room because invariably a moment later creek creek I 1 could hear the oboes of my grandmother creeping cre eking on toe the floor as she came to carry to me wf my jart of dessert without anyone knowing it in when I 1 was sick creek creek I 1 used to hear bear day and night around me the sound of the dear shoes and when later oft efell I 1 fell in love and my family was opposing fetn me oft my inclinations creek creek it was every evening when all wr ft asleep the same furtive noise et accompanied my Y grandmother who always wanted a edthe edhe dear soul to me and aak me a t thousand housand questions on her whom I 1 loved rv IV when I 1 heard in the hall the sound of her step I 1 did not cease to weep because cause my grandmother brought with herself all the consolations she dried yay tears tean and made me happy again much eh more happy than now that I 1 am compelled ana to hide my misunderstood emotions and that I 1 have no more as ben someone to embrace me and ex und to we me a charitable hand when 1 I aw am on the point of losing courage saadet the despairing questions of life 1 V Po orold shoes symbols of humility I 1 loved them without wit because they recalled to me the whom I 1 had most loved in the world and I 1 had placed them in my room in the place of honor upon the mantle in the place of candlesticks when one night a night that I 1 shall never forget I 1 entered my room poor and ruined you known my dear albert that gambling and drinking have caused all my misfortunes and that night having spent my last penny I 1 became in my drunkenness incensed to see there ridiculous inheritance these two old shoes where you see them just now and crazy with rage seizing them I 1 hurled them against the wall 0 surprise a roll escaped from one of them and as I 1 stooped dowid dewi I 1 saw with the greatest astonishment nt that it was a roll of bank banc notes I 1 was saved VI what a wretch I 1 was in casting thus down dawn these relies relics I 1 had just committed a profanation because in that supreme moment of misfortune my dear grandmother although dead was proving to me that she watched yet over me and I 1 had been wrong to ac cuse providence who never leaves her children in trouble and who on this oc occasion caslon was sending to me in grandmothers name this tor for succor my drunkenness instantly disappeared and falling in a chair I 1 shed bitter tears accusing myself loudly and at that moment I 1 do not know if it is an illusion but it seemed to me that I 1 heard my grandmothers sweet voice reproving me gently for having doubted her and I 1 am positive that I 1 felt upon my forehead two kisses as she formerly used to give them to me VII that is why I 1 will always preserve these poor shoes there they recall to me my illusions my first love my haip happiness and my tears th they ey bring baek back before my eyes ayea the spectacle of my youth of my successes and my failures they remind me of the old house yonder far away across the waters so merry formerly now solitary clad in its frame of grano grand dark old oaks centuries old who seem to watch over the place they remind me of the immense fields which surround it and of the glant giant hills whiten which prof profiled fied themselves on the distant horizon and above all that great with divine greatness I 1 pere perceive edve the peaceful and sweet face of grandmother imparting to this landscape so great abild to all these things animate and inanimate an air of profound serenity and happiness CAMBAN |