True, it was only to shoot larks, but still it was shooting.
Directly permission was granted, I ran over to Montagnon to impart my good news to him and to ask him for my gun; then I took it to pieces and cleaned it, although it was clean and well oiled; finally, I took it to my room at night and put it by my bed.
It may be guessed that I did not close my eyes that night; from time to time I stretched out my hand, to make sure that my beloved gun was still there. Never was adored mistress more caressed than that lifeless block of wood and iron and steel.
Unfortunately it was the month of November, and day was long in coming; but, if the day looked in upon me as it broke, it found me an earlier riser than itself, and already dressed in my shooting costume.
The effect produced was a singular combination of elegance and shabbiness.
The gun was everything that could be desired; fit for a duchess, with its gilt and fluted barrel, its touchhole and two pans of platinum, its velvety smooth butt-end.
My powder horn for priming it was an Arabian one which my father had brought back from Egypt; it was made of a small elephant tusk, damascened with gold, and seemed, like everything Oriental, as though the sun had left its mark upon it.
My powder horn for loading from was of horn, as transparent as glass, and mounted in silver. The charge, or rather the vessel that held the charge, was in the shape of a fox lying down, carved as though Barye had done it: it had belonged to the Princess Pauline. All the rest of my accoutrement was extremely modest, and contrasted ill with these three luxurious objects.
But as I did not yet know what love was, so neither did I know the meaning of art.
I slept in the same room as my mother; she got up the same time I did, feeling both glad and sorrowful at the same time: happy in my gladness, sad at this first escape, so to speak, from her maternal care.