Well, I gave her an imperfect copy of the Thousand and One Nights, which I possessed; it contained only the Wonderful Lamp, nothing else. She would be absorbed in the reading of this for a whole week, then she would return me the volume and ask for the next, which I would promise to give her on the morrow; I lent her the same again, which she always conscientiously re-read, and, I must add, with renewed delight.
This lasted quite a year, during which time she re-read the same volume fifty-two times.
"Well, Mademoiselle Pivert," I asked her at the end of the year, "does the Thousand and One Nights still entertain you?"
"Immensely, my little friend," she replied; "but one thing puzzles me; you may be able to explain it, as you are so learned."
"What is it, Mademoiselle Pivert?"
"Why are they all called Aladdin?"
Now, clever though I was, I could not answer Mademoiselle Pivert without confessing the truth, therefore I declared my ignorance, while she regarded it as an unpardonable fault in the unknown poet-author of the Thousand and One Nights to have labelled all his characters Aladdin.
Notwithstanding all this, the prodigious stock of learning, which was my pride and Mademoiselle Pivert's admiration, was still considered incomplete by my dear mother.
My sister was quite a good musician, and sang prettily; and my mother reproached herself, in spite of our poverty, for not giving equal advantages to both her children; so she decided that I also should learn music. But as it had already been discovered that good Mother Nature, so bountiful towards me in other respects, had endowed me with the most discordant of voices imaginable; and as it had been noticed that I had very nimble fingers and was clever with my hands; they elected to make me an instrumentalist only, and chose the violin,—the instrument which a musician does not use to accompany his voice, unless he is afflicted with blindness.
As the town of Villers-Cotterets only possessed one teacher there was no difficulty in choosing a professor.