CHAPTER II
ELIANE
An important event in my child life was the birth of my sister Eliane. I remember coming in from the garden one day with a little basket full of cockchafers that I had found, and running to show them to maman. She was lying in her large bed, with its four carved bedposts and high canopy, and, smiling faintly, she said: "Oh, no, my little girl; take them away. They will creep and fly over everything." I was, however, so much disappointed at this reception of my gift that maman, bending from her pillows, selected a specially beautiful green cockchafer and said that that one, at all events, she would keep. When next morning I was told that I had a little sister, old Gertrude, in answer to my eager, astonished questions, informed me that it was the cockchafer who, fed on milk, had become very large during the night and had given birth to a baby cockchafer, which it had presented to my mother. This story of the cockchafer became a family jest, and later on, after my mother had had four children, I remembered that when cockchafers were referred to she would laugh and say: "No! no! No more cockchafers for me, if you please! I have had enough of their gifts."
The story, which was repeated to me on the occasion of each subsequent birth, made a rather painful impression upon me. I did not like the idea of the baby cockchafer. Nor did I like my little sister Eliane into whom the cockchafer had grown. Maman remained in bed for a long time and paid no more attention to me, and I was deeply jealous. I was no longer allowed to go in and out of her room as had been my wont, and when my father took me in his arms and carried me gently in to see my little sister, and bent with me over the small pink cradle so that I might give her a kiss, I felt instead a violent wish to bite her. One day I was authorized to rock Eliane while my father and mother talked together. I was much pleased by this mark of confidence, and I slipped into the cradle, unnoticed, my horrible doll Josephine, all untidy and disheveled, not to say dirty, so that she, too, might have a rocking. She lay cheek to cheek with Eliane, already a young lady ten days old, and the contact of this cold, clammy cheek woke my little sister, who began to cry so loudly that, in order to quiet her, I rocked with might and main, and unless papa had rushed to the rescue it is probable that Eliane and Josephine would have been tossed out upon the floor. Jeannie was at once summoned to take me away in disgrace, and in bonne maman's room I was consoled by two dragées, one white, I remember, and one pink.
"You love your little sister, don't you, my darling?" asked bonne maman, to whom Jeannie related the affair of the rocking.
"No," I replied, the pink dragée in my mouth.
"Why not, dear?"
"She is horrid," I said. And as bonne maman, much distressed, continued to question and expostulate, I burst, despite the dragées, into a torrent of tears and cried: "She is bad! She is ugly! She cries!"
Eliane's christening was a grand affair. Her godmother was bonne maman, and her godfather my uncle de Salabéry, who brought her a casket in which was a cup and saucer in enamel and also an enamel egg-cup and tiny, round egg-spoon, and this I thought very silly, since Eliane, like the cockchafer, ate only milk. The casket was of pale-blue velvet, and had Eliane's name written upon it in golden letters. She was carried to the cathedral by her nurse, who wore a gray silk dress woven with silver fleurs-de-lis, a special silk, with its silver threads, made in Brittany. The bodice opened on a net guimpe thickly embroidered with white beads. The apron was of gray satin scattered over with a design, worked in beads, that looked like tiny fish. Her coif was the tall medieval hennin of Plougastel, a flood of lace falling from its summit. Eliane, majestically carried on her white-lace cushion, wore a long robe of lace and lawn, and again I found this very silly, since if by chance she wished to walk, she would certainly stumble in it! The curé was replaced by the bishop of the cathedral, who walked with a tall golden stick, twisted at the top into a pretty design. Papa, who was near me, explained to me that this was called a crozier (crosse), which puzzled me, as crosse is also the name for the drumstick of a chicken. I also learned that what I called the bishop's hat was a miter. When he passed before us every one knelt down except me, for I wished to gaze with all my eyes at the magnificent apparition. The bishop leaned toward me, smiling, and made a little cross on my forehead with his thumb, and then he put his hand, which was very white and adorned with a great ring of amethyst and diamond, before my lips. "Kiss Monseigneur's hand," papa whispered, and, again much puzzled, I obeyed, for maman and bonne maman gave their hands to be kissed by men and never kissed theirs. When the bishop put the salt in Eliane's mouth she made the most hideous grimace. Heavens! how ugly she was! Maman took her into her arms to calm her. I was near bonne maman who had been borne in her sedan-chair into the cathedral, and I whispered to her: "You say that she is pretty, bonne maman. Only look at her now! Doesn't she look like an angry little monkey!" But bonne maman reminded me in a low voice that unless I was very good, I was not to come to the christening breakfast, and, hastily, I began to turn my tongue in my mouth.
The beach of Loctudiy