The Child and the River by Henri Bosco

Author:Henri Bosco
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2023-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

4. THE PUPPETEER OF SOULS

FOREVER.

I was sure of it immediately. But I did not want to believe it. Which is why I waited.

“He will come back,” I told myself, not really believing it. “He must have gone snooping around a rabbit hole. It was a mistake to have left him alone. He got bored.” But he did not come back, and little by little I lost faith that he would. To console myself I hoped against hope. And yet it was useless. I knew very well he was gone.

Everything told me I was alone—the animals and their sounds, the waters and their silence. Everything. The sad little frog croaking in its clump of watercress at the far end of a lagoon—it too was alone. As was the big-headed owl hidden away among the leaves of a huge poplar on the other shore, periodically complaining to another owl close by, perched on a cypress in the middle of the island. This cypress-dweller replied patiently and mournfully to its melancholy companion, and back and forth went their lugubrious conversation across the lonely marshes. Though no sound came from the perfectly peaceful waters to darken my heart, the marshes spoke to me with their stillness. They were silent, and so I knew I was alone.

I should have been afraid, but I believe that my sorrow at having been abandoned blunted my fear. I was on edge even so. Vague perils menaced me—sounds, a shadow, a small something that breathed.

When the moon rose, my sorrow grew. Seeing the deserted expanse of marshes in the moonlight, I discovered the vastness of my solitude. I was so alone that, although deep within myself I was calling out to Gatzo, not a sound came from my mouth. I was terrified at how my voice would echo in this watery wasteland.

“He is in the village,” I told myself. “But how could he have gone there without me?”

Because it was the thought of Gatzo’s betrayal that bothered me, more than my being all alone at night in such a wild place. By leaving, he had shattered the most beautiful friendship of my life. It hurt me terribly. Because I would never again find a companion like him—a companion who was stronger, smarter, braver than I was. He was my first friend.

A dark foreboding made me secretly fear that he would never come back. Desperate, I decided to quit this sad mooring where I was so alone and go look for him.

I thought he might be in the village where I had seen those few houses at sunset.

I remembered the path the donkey had taken. By cutting through the oaks, it could be easily reached. The full moon lit up the edge of the woods, and I headed toward them.

That night the moon helped me a great deal—its brightness lit my way, and soft and vast, it calmed me down, casting a spell. For the moon is the most enchanting of heavenly bodies. Its light is so close! We feel

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