My Little Garden – A Memory of My Good Days.

Happy days, moments full of charm, spent in this nook fresher than the dawn of a beautiful day. How many times have I felt the joy of enjoying, beneath your lush shade, my memories and my feelings!

Ah! My little garden will always be dear to me: for always in bloom, always well cared for, I find in it each day new charms, offered by Nature, preserved by my labor, appreciated by my gratitude. Yes, I carry within me gratitude for this little garden, which I love like a gentle and gracious friend, who welcomes me each time with new kindness, whose beauty I sustain, just as it sustains my sweetest moments of time spent. When I see it again after a short absence, my heart feels the emotion one feels when reuniting with a friend. I have often found tears in my eyes simply at the sight of myself surrounded by my trees under their shade. Every step I take in this little garden recalls to me a memory, a thought, a feeling. The hours [and days] I spend there pass too quickly for happiness.

I prefer this happiness over any other: Yes, I swear, despite many added years, after all reflection, I am happier, settled in this little garden, than I ever was in the world. Fewer worries, fewer of those tormenting anxieties that self-love continually revives in a thousand forms. More reason, fewer follies, sensitivity without exaltation, calm without indifference, pleasures within my means, tastes easily satisfied, ties so sweet.

This is what Providence has preserved for me in the twilight of my life:

My little garden surrounds all my rooms. Upon waking, I head there without thought: an irresistible pull leads me, and I find myself there before I even think to go. Entering, I feel wrapped in the scent of the flowers with which it is filled. The first thing that meets my eyes is a white marble altar, which for eighteen years I have dedicated to God, in the name of my children. How dear this tribute is to my heart! It was offered to Him who allows me to call Him my Father, to Him who preserved my children for me, to Him who comforts, to Him who allows me to hope, to Him whom I always find good and merciful. This altar is surrounded by great poplars, planted by my own hand. Nature seems to protect them, and the earth seems to raise them proudly. They surpass in height all the trees in the area. These poplars, encircled by dense lilacs, look as if they rise from a flowered basket. The lilacs, intertwined with azaleas of golden blossoms, weaving their charming bouquets together, form a circle so dear to my heart. Beside the altar grows a wild rose with fragrant leaves, rosemary in full bloom, roses, violets—all these flowers in turn adorn the white marble at the foot of the altar with the simple inscription: To God! For my children. Gratitude engraved it, sweet hope makes me read it again and again.

Farther along, beside my window, I placed my aviary, where my canaries enjoy a kind of liberty in summer. Shaded by a large, thick acacia, it is covered with honeysuckle and climbing plants. Among the fragrant bouquets these plants produce, one can glimpse yellow, gray, and green canaries—their nests, their joy. One hears their chirping, their songs, their quarrels, and courtships. Beside the aviary, each spring I grow a collection of flowers: roses on tall stems, brooms with supple branches, myrtles in full bloom, oranges in blossom, magnolias with glossy leaves—all rising on the first steps of the terrace. Below grow clusters of pink carnations, purple, white, violet, and variegated stocks, carnations in warm tones, and flowers of every kind, mixing their vivid colors and delightful scents.

In the corner of the wall adjoining my window stands a table with a small mat roof, serving as a shade from the sun in the garden. There we breakfast, there we work, there we converse in confidence. On the other side, four hewn stone pillars, topped with a reed roof, around which climbing plants wind, form a little nook of delightful beauty. On one side, the Vistula, often covered with boats. From within, one sees the Temple, its portico, its columns, and the old trees that shade it. In the middle […], among large masses of enormous trees, a wide valley, meadows dotted with cattle, ending in hills, a village, and a church. On quiet, still evenings, the sound of the bell, though distant, sometimes reaches me. Under one of the pillars of my nook I placed a beautiful faun of white marble, beneath a roof, among fragrant plants. It is a symbol of the joy of my soul, and I like to see it between the imposing silhouette of the Temple, the melancholy view of the valley, and the old man’s figure on that ancient Vistula, which reminds me of many things.

A little further stands an old linden, which must have seen many generations pass. It seems to protect my little garden, covering it with its shade, as it does a small cottage placed beneath its branches. For many years it has been inhabited by a nightingale, who returns each spring to live there with his small family. A mass of plants forms a hedge on one side of my dear garden, while on the other it is closed only by flexible shrubs that allow the eye to wander beyond and see in part the expanse of the large garden.

Why, someone might ask me, this description, since I live in this place and it belongs to me? It is pure gratitude, that indefinable feeling that resembles the friendship one feels for a Being who contributes to our happiness and whose portrait we wish to keep. I spend my life in this garden and I am happy there: there I read, there I think, there I dream. There I am with my husband and my children. There I give lessons to my little Zosia. This child, so dear to me, listens, understands me, answers me, asks me questions! Her mind and her heart receive the impressions I strive to give her. She grows accustomed, in this little garden, to admiring the trees, the flowers, and Nature: and quite naturally I lead her attention to Him who created all.

My soul, seeing this young child grow and form, silently repeats the promise I made to her dying mother, never to cease my care and tender attention to this interesting being entrusted to me.

I have already passed the age when careless gaiety prevents one from noticing the swift passing of time. Gradually, the grace and memories of my bright days have faded. I have just described the picture of my good days. May they last for a long time yet. May my little garden—ever green, ever happy—often keep with me my husband, my children, my friends.

Once again I say that I love it, for everything pleases me there, everything seems better and happier there. My pleasures are keener, my dear […] more faithful. The color of the lake is lovelier, the sun brighter, the moon gentler, the dew fresher, the flowers more fragrant. It is magic! Perhaps it is an exaltation, but why should I renounce it? It so often forms the charm of my life.