Everything smiled on me

Here’s another passage I find in Mama’s letters. This poor little Mother evidently had a presentiment that the end of her exile was near.²⁴ “The little ones don’t disturb me since both of them are very good; they are very special, and certainly will turn out well. You and Marie will be able to raise them perfectly. Céline never commits the smallest deliberate fault. The little one will be all right too, for she wouldn’t tell a lie for all the gold in the world and she has a spirit about her that I have not seen in any of you.²⁵

“The other day she was at the grocery store with Céline and Louise. She was talking about her practices. She was doing this rather loudly with Céline and the woman in the store said to Louise: ‘What does she mean by these little practices? When she’s playing in the garden that’s all she talks about. Mme. Gaucherin listens at the window trying to understand what this debate about practices means.’

“The little one is our whole happiness. She will be good; one can already see the germ of goodness in her. She speaks only about God and wouldn’t miss her prayers for anything. I wish you could see her recite the little poems she learned. Never have I seen anything so cute. She gets the exact expression and tone all by herself. But it is especially when she says: ‘Little child with the golden hair, where do you believe God is?’ When she comes to the words: ‘He is up there in the blue heavens,’ she raises her eyes with an angelic expression. It’s so beautiful that one doesn’t grow tired of asking her to recite it, for there is something heavenly in her face!”²⁶

How happy I really was at that age, dear Mother! I had already begun to enjoy life; virtue had its charming qualities for me, and I was, it seems to me, in the same dispositions then as I am now, enjoying a firm control over my actions.

Ah! how quickly those sunny years passed by, those years of my childhood, but what a sweet imprint they have left on my soul! I recall the days Papa used to bring us to the pavilion;²⁷ the smallest details are impressed in my heart. I recall especially the Sunday walks when Mama used to accompany us. I still feel the profound and poetic impressions that were born in my soul at the sight of fields enameled with cornflowers and all types of wild flowers. Already I was in love with the wide open spaces. Space and the gigantic fir trees, the branches sweeping down to the ground, left in my heart an impression similar to the one I experience still today at the sight of nature.

We frequently met poor people on these long walks, and it was always little Thérèse who was put in charge of bringing them alms, which made her quite happy. Very often Papa, finding the walk too long for his little Queen, brought her back to the house before the others (which displeased her very much). And to console her, Céline filled her pretty little basket with daises and gave them to her when she got back; but alas! grandmother²⁸ found her granddaughter had too many, so she took a large part of them for her statue of the Blessed Virgin. This didn’t please little Thérèse, but she kept from saying anything, having got into the habit of not complaining ever, even when they took what belonged to her or when she was accused unjustly. She preferred to be silent and not excuse herself. There was no merit here but natural virtue. What a shame that this good inspiration has vanished!

Oh! everything truly smiled upon me on this earth: I found flowers under each of my steps and my happy disposition contributed much to making life pleasant, but a new period was about to commence for my soul. I had to pass through the crucible of trial and to suffer from my childhood in order to be offered earlier to Jesus. Just as the flowers of spring begin to grow under the snow and to expand in the first rays of the sun, so the little flower whose memories I am writing had to pass through the winter of trial.