Treasures of the Snow (12 page)

“I wish I could go away,” he thought to himself, “and start all over again where nobody knew me, or knew what I’d done. If I could go and live in another valley, I shouldn’t feel afraid of everybody like I do here.”

His eyes rested on the Pass that ran between two opposite mountain peaks and led to the big town in the next valley where Marie worked. The sight of that Pass always fascinated him. It seemed like a road leading into another world, away from all that was safe and familiar. Twice he had crossed the Pass himself, in summer, when the sun was shining and the ground was covered with flowers. Now, gazing at it, it suddenly seemed like a door of escape from some prison.

Lucien saw the old man as he left the wood, long before the old man saw him. He was sitting at his front door, his chin resting on his hands, gazing at the mountains on the other side of the valley. He didn’t look up until Lucien was quite close to him.

“Ah,” said the old man in his deep, mumbling voice, “it’s you again. Well, how goes the carving, and when are you going to win that prize?”

“I am not going to win the prize,” replied Lucien sullenly. “My horse is smashed to pieces. I think the cat knocked it over the railing, and someone trampled on it.”

“I am so sorry,” said the old man gently. “But surely you can enter something else. What about that chamois you carved? That was a good piece of work for a boy.”

Lucien kicked savagely at the stones on the path. “I did it without proper tools,” he muttered, “and they would think it was my best work. No, if I cannot enter my little horse, I will enter nothing.”

“But does it matter what they think?” inquired the old man.

“Yes,” muttered Lucien again.

“Why?”

Lucien stared at the ground. What could he answer to that? But the old man was his friend, almost the only friend he had. Maybe he had better try to speak the truth.

“It matters very much,” he mumbled, “because they all hate me and think I’m stupid and bad. If I won a prize, and they saw I could carve better than any other boy in the valley, they might like me better.”

“They wouldn’t,” he said simply. “Your skill can never buy you love. It may win you admiration and envy, but never love. If that was what you were after, you have wasted your time.”

Lucien continued to stare at the ground. Then suddenly he looked up into the old man’s face, his eyes brimming with tears.

“Then it is all no good,” he whispered. “There seems no way to start again and to make them like me. I suppose they just never will.”

“If you want them to like you,” replied the old man steadily, “you must make yourself fit to be liked. And you must use your skill in loving and serving them. It will not happen all at once. It may even take years, but you must keep trying.”

Lucien stared up at the old man. He wondered why this strange old man, who seemed to know so much about the way of love, should shut himself away up here in the mountains and cut himself off from everybody.

The old man seemed to guess what Lucien was thinking.

“You wonder why I should talk of loving and serving other people, don’t you?” he asked. “You are right to wonder such a thing. It is a long story, too.”

“Well,” admitted Lucien, “I was thinking that it must be difficult to love and serve people when you live alone up here and never speak to anyone but me.”

The old man sat silent for some moments, looking out over the mountain peaks, then said, “I will tell you my story, but remember, it is a secret. I have never told it to another living soul. But you have trusted me, and I will trust you, too.”

Lucien blushed. Those were good words. Even his disappointment about the prize seemed to matter less. It was better to be trusted than to win prizes.

“I will start at the beginning,” said the old man simply. “I was an only child, and there was nothing in the world my father would not give me. If ever a child was spoiled, I was.

“I was a clever boy, and when I grew up I had a good job in a bank. I worked very hard and did well. I fell in love with a girl and married her. God gave us two little sons, and for the first few years of our life together I believe I was a good husband and a good father.

“But I made some bad friends, who invited me to their homes. They were interested in gambling and they drank a lot of alcohol. I admired them and began to copy their ways. Slowly I began to spend more and more money on strong drink and gambling.

“I don’t need to tell you much about those years. I was at home less and less, and often came home drunk in the evenings. My little boys grew to dislike me and fear me. My wife was a good woman, and she prayed for me and begged me to stop drinking, but I just couldn’t give it up.

“We began to lose all our money, and people were starting to talk about me and my bad ways. The bank manager warned me twice, but the third time, when I was found drunk in the streets, he sacked me. That day I went home sober and told my wife I had lost my job. She simply replied, ‘Then I shall have to go out and work. We can’t fail our boys.’

“I tried to find another job, but people knew about me and no one would employ me. I tried to earn money by gambling, but I never had any luck. I lost the little money I had.

“My wife went out to work every day, as well as looking after the house and our two boys, but she could not earn enough to keep us all. One day she came and told me we owed money to people, and we could not pay them.

“I was desperate for money to pay our debts and to buy myself more drink. I had not had a good job in the bank for nothing. I knew its ways inside and out, so I decided to commit a robbery.

“My clever plan worked, but it was not quite clever enough and I was caught. As I could pay nothing back to the bank, I was sent to prison for a very long time.

“My wife became very ill. She was working too hard, and ate hardly anything so that our boys would have enough food. Three times she came to prison to visit me, looking pale and worn out. Then my elder boy wrote to tell me that she was too ill to come. A few weeks later a policeman took me to her bedside to say good-bye to her. She was dying. They said she died from tuberculosis, but I knew she died of a broken heart, and I had killed her.

“I remember little about the months that followed. I felt numb and lost. I had only one comfort. All my life I had loved woodcarving, and in my spare hours in the common room in prison they let me have my tools and whittle away at bits of wood. I grew more and more skillful, and a kind prison warden used to take my work and sell it in the town. I earned a little money in that way and saved it up. One day I hoped to have enough to start again.

“The day came sooner than I expected. I was called to the governor and told that because I had been well behaved, they were letting me out early. I would soon be a free man again.

“I wandered back to the prisoners’ common room, hardly knowing whether to be pleased or sorry. I supposed I should be glad to leave prison, but where should I go, and how could I start life again? One thing I was sure about: my boys should never see me again or know where I was. They had been adopted by their grandparents, and I knew they were growing up into fine, intelligent boys with good futures ahead of them. I didn’t want them to be connected with my bad name. To them I would be as though I was dead.

“When the day of my release came, I walked out with my little sum of money in my pocket and took the first train up into the mountains.

“I got out at this village because I saw a man in difficulty with his herd of cows who were trying to push through a broken fence. I helped him get them back into the road and then asked him if he could give me work.

“He did not need me, but pointed to a chalet halfway up the mountain. Up there, he told me, was a peasant whose son had gone down to the lake towns to learn a trade. He badly needed someone to take the place of his son.

“I shall never forget that day! I found the chalet, and the man himself was chopping wood outside when I arrived. I went and stood in front of him. I was tired and hungry and sick at heart, and wasted no time in asking him if he had a job for me.

“He looked me up and down. His face was good and his eyes were kind.

“‘You are not from our village,’ he said. ‘Where have you come from, and who are you?’

‘I come from Geneva.’ “‘What is your work?’ “‘I have none.’ “‘But what have you been doing up to now?’ I tried to think up some good lie, but the man looked at me so straight, and his face was so honest, that I knew I had to tell him the truth. I wanted him to know me for what I was, or else not to know me at all.

“‘I have just come out of prison,’ I said simply.

“‘Why were you in prison?’

“‘For stealing money.’

“‘How do I know that you will not steal my money?’

“Because I want to start again, and I am asking you to trust me. If you do not trust me, I will go away.’

“He looked me up and down. Then he held out his hand to me, and I sat down on the bench beside him and wept.

“I worked hard for that man for five years. I made friends with no one and took no rest. My only joy was to work for the man I loved and who had received me when everyone else had rejected me. I often wondered why he did it, until one night I heard him talking to his son, who was home from town for the weekend.

“‘Father,’ said the boy, ‘why did you take in that prisoner without knowing anything about him? Surely it was a very unwise thing to do.’

“‘My son,’ answered the man, ‘Christ received everyone, whether they were good or bad, and we are his followers. We must do the same.’

“In the summer we took the cows up the mountain and lived in this chalet where I live now. And the peace of the mountain seemed to enter into me and heal me. Slowly I, too, began to believe in the love and mercy of God.

“But after four years my master began to grow weak and ill. He visited the doctor, but nothing could be done for him. I cared for him for a year and his son often came to see him, but at last he died and I was left alone. The night before he died, he spoke to me, as my wife had done, about the love and mercy of God and how He can forgive us for what we have done wrong.

“So I lost my only friend, although his son was very good to me. He was a rich man by now. He sold the cows and gave me this chalet for my own. I bought a goat and a few hens, collected my few possessions, and came here. I have lived here ever since.

“I have only one friend—the shopkeeper in town who sells my carvings. He sometimes gives me news of my sons. They have grown up into good men and they have done well. One is a doctor and one is a businessman. They do not know that I am alive, and it is better like that. I have nothing that I could give them, and my name would only disgrace them.

“Because I now believe in God, and His love and mercy, I want to make things right. I cannot give back the money I stole from the bank, but I have worked hard and saved nearly as much money as I stole. When I have saved the whole amount, I will find some person or good cause that really needs it. In that way I shall pay back all I owe and I will feel I have put things right.

“You tell me there is no way to start again, but you are wrong. I have done far, far worse things than you have ever done, and suffered for it. But I believe that God has forgiven me, and I am spending my days working to give back what I owe and trying to become what God meant me to be. It is all I can do. It is all anyone can do. The past we must leave to God.”

The goat had come up and rested its brown head on the old man’s knee. Now it butted him to remind him that it was milking time. Lucien got up to go.

He walked home slowly. “I am spending my days working to restore what I owe … trying to become what God meant me to be.” He thought about it a lot—so much so that the matter of the prize seemed quite small, and he found that he had stopped minding so much. He couldn’t restore Dani’s leg, but one day he might get the chance to do something great for him. As for the second part, he could at least try to be a nicer boy. There was his mother, for a start. She was miserable because his carving was broken. Well, he would be brave and show her he didn’t mind, and then she would be happy again.

As he left the wood he could see the orange lights in his chalet windows shining out warm and welcoming. He hurried home and ran lightly up the chalet steps and kissed his mother, who was standing on the balcony watching for him.

“I’m hungry, Mother,” he said brightly. “Have you saved my supper?”

Over the top of his soup bowl he smiled at her, and the sadness left her eyes as she smiled back.

T
he sun woke Dani early next morning, and he lay for a few minutes trying to remember what important thing was going to happen that day. It soon came back to him, and he sat up in bed and shouted for Annette.

“’Nette,” he called, “come quick! I’m coming to see you get the prize! Bring me my best black velvet suit and my embroidered braces and my waistcoat.
Quick!
”

Annette pretended not to hear until he had said it four times. Then she sat up.

“Be quiet, Dani,” she called back rather crossly. “I don’t suppose I shall get that prize at all, and anyhow it’s much too early to get dressed. Papa’s only just got up.”