Claude Monet | Houses on the Achterzaan | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (metmuseum.org)
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Houses On The Achterzaan
Third Granddaughter – 06/02/23
… and when they arrived at the house, “granpère’s on the river” as she always called it, Jules came out of his house next door and saw her and he walked up to her, just to her, so surprising, and said, “It’s so nice to see you. You didn’t come last year. Maybe we can boat on the river together”, which was even more surprising and nice…he seemed so handsome now…and he had never said this, or anything like this before and she said, all she could think of to say, was, “Yes, that would be nice to”. And she smiled, surprised again at her words now because…they were true. And he smiled and turned away to walk back to his house next door, jumping a little jump and almost skipping along as he used to do when they first met when she was nine and he was ten…five years ago, for now she was fourteen – a pretty young lady grandma and papa now said – oh, and he fifteen…and he was now handsome, yes, maybe that was what surprised her most, a handsome boy, older than her, coming up to her to ask her, just her, if she would be with him, just him – a first among the very few firsts of her life of fourteen years. And she went to help her mother with some of the lighter bags, and after bringing them into the house, she sat down by her favorite window, the one that looked towards Jules house and the water of the river that ran in front of it. For last year when grandma was sick in Paris, they did not come to the house on the river, and she missed sitting by the window and now as she gazed out the window she wondered if was not so much the view she missed, but that from the window she first saw Jules. For Jules father, such a nice kind man, was sitting in a boat not far from shore reading and Jules and his friend, François, and cousin, Emil, were shouting and swimming to the boat and back to the shore, not a long distance, but as she watched, she realized they were naked, their very white bottoms when they turned in the water giving them away. And she called her mother and said, “Look boys are swimming naked. Why do they do that?” And her mother looked out the window and smiled and just said boys do that because they are different and smiled again and left. And she had pondered what her mother said. For she knew boys had different bodies, different parts as she had helped bath her cousin Gabriel, such a happy baby, but this must be a different different, as it did not seem to do with body parts, and after a time she had smiled, as she liked this difference, whatever it was, it was happy, and she thought again of what Jules had come to say to her and that was different, and she smiled for she knew she liked this difference also, and maybe that because she liked Jules, but now maybe in a different way, and she thought that was nice also, because she knew now and more and more, that she was different too…and…maybe that was why Jules came up to her…and he was handsome…and he was different…and she was different…and that was so different and nice… And she smiled…now…because of something nice inside of her.
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So this is a story of two childhood friends entering a wonderful and very confusing time of their short existence. So all U can say is this story made me remember my youth and the beauty and wonderfulness of it all. It is confusing and a time of joy and also of wonderment. Later as we mature, we learn about the briefness of life and the wonder of it all.
Thank you for sharing this. It reminded me of my own blossoming.