Show j THE LITTLE NAOMI 1 From the French of Ernest Renan Eenan p rd Among mong these l little comrades I have r f said that there was one who had for me mea a peculiar charm J She was called o Naomi She was wasi a i little model of wisdom wis wis- wis- wis wisdom dom and grace Her eyes had a delicious stamped at the same time with f good goodness ess and delicacy her hair j was a beautiful blonde She might have been two years older than I and her way of of 1 speaking to me was between the tone of 1 an older sister and the confidences of two f children 4 1 We agreed admirably When her little lit Ht- tle tIe girl friends quarreled we were always of the same opinion I tried to make makepeace makepeace peace between the dissenters but she was skeptical as to the outcome of my r r attempts L 11 II Ernest said she to me you will not succeed you wish ish to put put everybody in harmony 3 That pacifying childish mutual assistance as as- 1 which gave to us an imperceptible t tible ble superiority over the oth others rs established established between us a slight but most Ji pleasant tie Even now I cannot hear f i anyone sing We shall go to the woods or It rains it rains shepherdess shepherd shepherd- ess without being seized with a slight slight heart trembling Certainly without the 11 fatal vise which enclosed me I might i have loved Naomi two or three years i f after but 1 I was devoted to reasoning already religious logic busied me com com com- I The flood of abstractions which r head stunned and rendered rend rend- mounted to my 1 red Bred me minded absent-minded for everything 4 else i iA which fault A singular moreover 1 more than than once in life was to hurt me crossed that dawning affection and made it swerve My indecision is a cause for permitting myself to be easily led into contradictory situations whose knot I cannot cut This trait of Jf character became became became be be- came complicated in this instance with ei J tL a quality which which has made me commit ry as many inconsistencies as the worst of faults t Among these children there was a little little lit lit- j tle girl much less beautiful than Naomi good and amiable no doubt but less feasted and petted She sought me fi hr perhaps even a little more Inore than did 1 Naomi and did not conceal a certain jealousy To cause pain to anyone has J always been for me an impossibility 1 t imagined vaguely ely that the woman who J is IS not pretty is IS unfortunate and must rf be consumed by secret pangs as if she i had missed her destiny t I used to go with the less loved more i than with Naomi for I saw that she r was sad I thus allowed my first love loveto to branch off as later I let my politics branch branch off in a most clumsy fashion Once or twice I saw Naomi laugh in v. v her sleeve at my simplicity She was f always gentle toward me but at times there was in her a shade of irony which M she did not conceal and which only f. f made her still more charming to me f The struggle which filled my youth t h. h made me almost forget her Later her herY Y image has often come up before me One day I asked my mother what had become of herShe herShe her She is de dead d she told me dead of sadness She had no fortune When she lost her parents her aunt 1 a very r. r worthy woman who kept an inn the theu u most honest house in the world took t fI her to her home The aunt did her 6 X A best You knew Naomi only as a child already charming but at twenty she was was a marvel Her hair which she tried t 4 in vain to hold prisoner under a heavy p cap escaped in twisted tresses like s 's t sheaves of ripe wheat She did what li she could to hide her 1 beauty Her admirable admirable ad ad- mirable figure was concealed by a tippet her slender white hands were always lost in mittens All this was in vain s At church groups of young people gathered to see her pray She was too VJ T beautiful for our world and she was as wise as she was beautiful That grieved me deeply I ha have thought much more of her since then and when God gave me a daughter I l named her Naomi |