She is not lovely at first. It is cruel, perhaps, but she is red, and positively ugly. She feels this keenly, and cries. She weeps. Ah, my God, how she weeps! Her cries and lamentations now are really distressing.
Tears stream from her in floods. She feels deeply and copiously, like M. Alphonse de Lamartine in his “Confessions.”
If you are her mother, Madame, you will fancy worms; you will examine her linen for pins, and what not. Ah, hypocrite! you, even you, misunderstand her.
Yet she has charming natural impulses. See how she tosses her dimpled arms. She looks longingly at her mother. She has a language of her own. She says, “goo, goo,” and “ga, ga.” She demands something—this infant!
She is faint, poor thing. She famishes. She wishes to be restored. Restore her, Mother! It is the first duty of a mother to restore her child!
III
THE DOLL
She is hardly able to walk; she already totters under the weight of a doll.
It is a charming and elegant affair. It has pink cheeks and purple-black hair. She prefers brunettes, for she has already, with the quick knowledge of a French infant, perceived she is a blonde, and that her doll cannot rival her. Mon Dieu, how touching! Happy child! She spends hours in preparing its toilet. She begins to show her taste in the exquisite details of its dress. She loves it madly, devotedly. She will prefer it to bonbons. She already anticipates the wealth of love she will hereafter pour out on her lover, her mother, her father, and finally, perhaps, her husband.