I do not know how I made it through the dark rain to the strange stand that appeared to me in the night. I do not know what city I was in, nor do I know the year. I remember one thing: the season. It was rainy, very rainy.
It is certain that at that same time men were finding, along the roads, little wandering children who refused to grow up. Seven-year-old girls were begging on their knees to not age any further; to them, puberty already seemed fatal. Whitish processions moved beneath the livid sky, and little shadows, barely having learned to speak, urged on the youth. All they yearned for was perpetual ignorance. They wished to devote themselves to eternal games. They despaired in the face of life’s labor. In their eyes, everything was behind them.
In those dreary days, in that rainy, very rainy season, I first noticed the dim, weak lights of the little lamp girl.
I approached her beneath the awning, and the rain ran down the nape of my neck as I lowered my head.
And I said to her:
“What are you selling, little vendor, this sad rainy season?”
“Lamps,” she replied. “Only burning lamps.”
“And in truth,” I asked her, “what are these burning lamps, as big as your little finger with flames the size of a pinhead?”
“They light the shadows of this season,” she said. “They were once meant for dolls, but children no longer want to grow up. That’s why I sell them these little lamps that barely brighten the dark rain.”
“And do you live off this?” I asked, “little vendor dressed in black, and do you eat with the money that children pay you for your lamps ?”
“Yes,” she said, simply. “But I don’t make much. For the sinister rain often puts out my lamps the moment I hand them to my customers. And once they go out, the children no longer want them. Nobody can light them again. These are the only ones I have left. I know I won’t be able to find any more. And once I’ve sold them all, we will be left in the darkness of the rain.”
“So this is the only light we have in this dreary season?” I said again. “And how are we supposed to use such weak lamps to brighten such wet shadows?”
“The rain often puts them out,” she said, “and in fields or by roads, they are good for nothing. But you need to shut yourself away. Children give my little lamps shelter with their hands and shut themselves away. They each shut themselves away with their lamp and a mirror. And it makes enough light to show them their face in the looking glass.”
For a moment I watched the pitiful, wavering flames.
“Alas!” I said. “Little vendor, it’s a sad light, and the images they see in the mirrors must be sad ones.”
“They’re not nearly as sad as you think,” said the child dressed in black, shaking her head, “so long as they haven’t grown up. But the little lamps I sell don’t last forever. Their flames wane, as if burdened by the dark rain. And when my little lamps go out, the children no longer see the glow in the mirror, and they despair. For they fear they won’t be able to foresee the moment when they will start to grow up. That’s why they run away, whimpering into the night. But I’m only allowed to sell one lamp to each child. If they try to buy a second, the flame dies in their hands.”
And ever so slightly, I bent down toward the little vendor, and I wanted to take one of her lamps.
“Oh, you mustn’t touch!” she said. “My lamps won’t burn for someone as old as you. They are only made for dolls and children. Don’t you have a grown-up lamp where you live?”
“Alas!” I said, “in the dark rain of this rainy season, in this dreary, unknown weather, your children’s lamps are the only things that burn.” And I too wanted to see the light of the mirror one more time.
“Come,” she said, “let’s look together.”
By way of a little worm-eaten ladder she led me into a modest, wooden room, where a splinter of a mirror had been hung on the wall.
“Hush,” she said, “and I will show you. For my own lamp is brighter and stronger than the others; in these rainy shadows, I am not too poor.” And she raised her lamp to the looking glass.
In the pale reflection that formed, I watched wellknown stories play out. But the little lamp lied, lied, lied. I saw the feather rise up from Cordelia’s lips; and she was smiling and convalescing; and she was living in an enormous cage like a bird with her old father, and she kissed his white beard. I saw Ophelia playing on the glassy surface of the pond, and wrapping her wet arms, garlanded with violets, around Hamlet’s neck. I saw Desdemona, awoken, wandering beneath the willow trees. I saw the princess Maleine take her two hands off the eyes of the old king, and laugh, and dance. I saw Mélisande, freed, admiring herself in the fountain.
And I cried: “Lying little lamp …”
“Hush!” said the little lamp girl, and she put her hand over my lips. “You mustn’t speak. Is the rain not dark enough?”
So I lowered my head and went into the rainy night in the unknown city.