Alas! I was not destined to have that great joy. One morning in January, when we were all a.s.sembled in the chapel for Ma.s.s, I was surprised and had a foreboding of coming evil as I saw the Abbe Lethurgi go up into the pulpit before commencing the Ma.s.s. He was very pale, and I turned instinctively to look at the Mother Superior. She was seated in her regular place. The almoner then began, in a voice broken with emotion, to tell us of the murder of Monseigneur Sibour.
Murdered! A thrill of horror went through us, and a hundred stifled cries, forming one great sob, drowned for an instant the priest"s voice.
Murdered! The word seemed to sting me personally even more than the others. Had I not been, for one instant, the favourite of the kind old man? It was as though the murderer, Verger, had struck at me too, in my grateful love for the prelate, in my little fame, of which he had now robbed me. I burst into sobs, and the organ, accompanying the prayer for the dead, increased my grief, which became so intense that I fainted. It was from this moment that I was taken with an ardent love for mysticism.
It was fortified by the religious exercises, the dramatic effect of our worship, and the gentle encouragement, both fervent and sincere, of those who were educating me. They were very fond of me, and I adored them, so that even now the very memory of them, fascinating and restful as it is, thrills me with affection.
The time appointed for my baptism drew near, and I grew more and more excitable. My nervous attacks were more and more frequent--fits of tears for no reason at all, and fits of terror without any cause. Everything seemed to take strange proportions as far as I was concerned. One day one of my little friends dropped a doll that I had lent her (for I played with dolls until I was over thirteen). I began to tremble all over, as I adored that doll, which had been given to me by my father.
"You have broken my doll"s head, you naughty girl!" I exclaimed. "You have hurt my father!"
I would not eat anything afterwards, and in the night I woke up in a great perspiration, with haggard eyes, sobbing, "Papa is dead! Papa is dead!"
Three days later my mother came. She asked to see me in the parlour, and, making me stand in front of her, she said, "My poor little girl, I have something to tell you that will cause you great sorrow. Papa is dead."
"I know," I said, "I know"; and the expression in my eyes, my mother frequently told me afterwards, was such that she trembled a long time for my reason.
I was very sad and not at all well. I refused to learn anything, except catechism and scripture, and I wanted to be a nun.
My mother had succeeded in arranging that my two sisters should be baptized with me--Jeanne, who was then six years old, and Regina, who was not three, but who had been taken as a boarder at the convent with the idea that her presence might cheer me up a little.
I was isolated for a week before my baptism and for a week afterwards, as I was to be confirmed one week after the event.
My mother, Aunt Rosine Berendt and Aunt Henriette Faure, my G.o.dfather Regis, Monsieur Meydieu, Jeanne"s G.o.dfather, and General Polhes, Regina"s G.o.dfather, the G.o.dmothers of my two sisters and my various cousins, all came, and revolutionised the convent. My mother and my aunts were in fashionable mourning attire. Aunt Rosine had put a spray of lilac in her bonnet, "to enliven her mourning," as she said. It was a strange expression, but I have certainly heard it since used by other people besides her.
I had never before felt so far away from all these people who had come there on my account. I adored my mother, but with a touching and fervent desire to leave her, never to see her again, to sacrifice her to G.o.d. As to the others, I did not see them. I was very grave and rather moody. A short time previously a nun had taken the veil at the convent, and I could think of nothing else.
This baptismal ceremony was the prelude to my dream. I could see myself like the novice who had just been admitted as a nun. I pictured myself lying down on the ground covered over with the heavy black cloth with its white cross, and four ma.s.sive candlesticks placed at the four corners of the cloth, and I planned to die under this cloth. How I was to do this I do not know. I did not think of killing myself, as I knew that would be a crime. But I made up my mind to die like this, and my ideas galloped along, so that I saw in my imagination the horror of the sisters and heard the cries of the pupils, and was delighted at the emotion which I had caused.
After the baptismal ceremony my mother wished to take me away with her.
She had rented a small house with a garden in the Boulevard de la Reine, at Versailles, for my holidays, and she had decorated it with flowers for this _fete_ day, as she wanted to celebrate the baptism of her three children. She was very gently told that, as I was to be confirmed in a week"s time, I was now to be isolated until then. My mother cried, and I can remember now, to my sorrow, that it did not make me sad to see her tears, but quite the contrary.
When every one had gone and I went into the little cell in which I had been living for the last week and wherein I was to live for another week, I fell on my knees in a state of exaltation and offered up to G.o.d my mother"s sorrow. "You saw, O Lord G.o.d, that mamma cried, and that it did not affect me!" Poor child that I was, I imagined in my wild exaggeration of everything that what was expected from me was the renunciation of all affection, devotion, and pity.
The following day Mother St. Sophie lectured me gently about my wrong comprehension of religious duties, and she told me that when once I was confirmed she should give me a fortnight"s holiday, to go and make my mother forget her sorrow and disappointment.
My confirmation took place with the same pompous ceremonial. All the pupils, dressed in white, carried wax tapers. For the whole week I had refused to eat. I was pale and had grown thinner, and my eyes looked larger from my perpetual transports, for I went to extremes in everything.
Baron Larrey, who came with my mother to my confirmation, asked for a month"s holiday for me to recruit, and this was granted.
Accordingly we started, my mother, Madame Guerard, her son Ernest, my sister Jeanne, and I, for Cauterets in the Pyrenees.
The movement, the packing of the trunks, parcels, and packages, the railway, the diligence, the scenery, the crowds and the general disturbance cured me of my nerves and my mysticism. I clapped my hands, laughed aloud, flung myself on mamma and nearly stifled her with kisses.
I sang hymns at the top of my voice; I was hungry and thirsty, so I ate, drank, and in a word, lived.
V
THE SOLDIER"S SHAKO
Cauterets at that time was not what it is now. It was an abominable but charming little hole of a place, with plenty of verdure, very few houses, and a great many huts belonging to the mountain people. There were plenty of donkeys to be hired, that took us up the mountains by extraordinary paths.
I adore the sea and the plain, but I neither care for mountains nor for forests. Mountains seem to crush me and forests to stifle me. I must, at any cost, have the horizon stretching oat as far as the eye can see and skies to dream about.
I wanted to go up the mountains, so that they should lose their crushing effect. And consequently we went up always higher and higher.
Mamma used to stay at home with her sweet friend, Madame Guerard. She used to read novels whilst Madame Guerard embroidered. They would sit there together without speaking, each dreaming her own dream, seeing it fade away, and beginning it over again. The old servant, Marguerite, was the only domestic mamma had brought with her, and she used to accompany us. Gay and daring, she always knew how to make the men laugh with her prattle, the sense and crudeness of which I did not understand until much later. She was the life of the party always. As she had been with us from the time we were born, she was very familiar, and sometimes objectionably so; but I would not let her have her own way with me, though, and I used to answer her back in most cutting fashion. She took her revenge in the evening by giving us a dish of sweets for dinner that I did not like.
I began to look better for the change, and although still very religious, my mysticism was growing calmer. As I could not exist, however, without a pa.s.sion of some kind, I began to get very fond of goats, and I asked mamma quite seriously whether I might become a goat-herd.
"I would rather you were that than a nun," she replied; and then she added, "We will talk about it later on."
Every day I brought down with me from the mountain another little kid.
We had seven of them, when my mother interfered and put a stop to my zeal.
Finally, it was time to return to the convent. My holiday was over, and I was quite well again.
I was to go back to work once more. I accepted the situation willingly, to the great surprise of mamma, who loved travelling, but detested the actual moving from one place to another.
I was delighted at the idea of the re-packing of the parcels and trunks, of being seated in things that moved along, of seeing again all the villages, towns, people, and trees, which changed all the time. I wanted to take my goats with me, but my mother nearly had a fit.
"You are mad!" she exclaimed. "Seven goats in a train and in a carriage!
Where could you put them? No, a hundred times no!"
She finally consented to my taking two of them and a blackbird that one of the mountaineers had given me. And so we returned to the convent.
I was received there with such sincere joy that I felt very happy again immediately. I was allowed to keep my two goats there, and to have them out at playtime. We had great fun with them: they used to b.u.t.t us and we used to b.u.t.t them, and we laughed, frolicked, and were very foolish. And yet I was nearly fourteen at this time; but I was very puny and childish.
I stayed at the convent another ten months without learning anything more. The idea of becoming a nun always haunted me, but I was no longer mystic.
My G.o.dfather looked upon me as the greatest dunce of a child, I worked, though, during the holidays, and I used to have lessons with Sophie Croizette, who lived near to our country house. This gave a slight impetus to me in my studies, but it was only slight. Sophie was very gay, and what we liked best was to go to the museum, where her sister Pauline, who was later on to become Madame Carolus Duran, was copying pictures by the great masters.
Pauline was as cold and calm as Sophie was charming talkative, and noisy. Pauline Croizette was beautiful, but I liked Sophie better--she was more gracious and pretty. Madame Croizette, their mother, always seemed sad and resigned. She had given up her career very early. She had been a dancer at the opera in St. Petersburg, and had been very much adored and flattered and spoiled. I fancy it was the birth of Sophie that had compelled her to leave the stage. Her money had then been injudiciously invested, and she had been ruined. She was very distinguished-looking; her face had a kind expression; there was an infinite melancholy about her, and people were instinctively drawn towards her. Mamma and she had made each other"s acquaintance while listening to the music in the park at Versailles, and for some time we saw a great deal of one another.
Sophie and I had some fine games in that magnificent park. Our greatest joy, though, was to go to Madame Ma.s.son"s in the Rue de la Gare. Madame Ma.s.son had a curiosity shop. Her daughter Cecile was a perfect little beauty. We three used to delight in changing the tickets on the vases, snuff-boxes, fans, and jewels, and then when poor M. Ma.s.son came back with a rich customer--for Ma.s.son the antiquary enjoyed a world-wide reputation--Sophie and I used to hide so that we should see his fury.
Cecile, with an innocent air, would be helping her mother, and glancing slyly at us from time to time.
The whirl of life separated me brusquely from all these people whom I loved, and an incident, trivial in itself, caused me to leave the convent earlier than my mother wished.
It was a _fete_ day, and we had two hours for recreation. We were marching in procession along the wall which skirts the railway on the left bank of the Seine, and as we were burying my pet lizard we were chanting the "De Profundis." About twenty of my little playfellows were following me, when suddenly a soldier"s shako fell at my feet.
"What"s that?" called out one of the girls.
"A soldier"s shako."
"Did it come from over the wall?"