It seemed to the child that this was too good to be true. The country, in her imagination, was the source and foundation of all real happiness. There was nothing in cities,—nothing but dust and crowds, and human selfishness and universal hardness of heart, and toil and misery.
In the country was freedom and independence. She had tasted it in her furtive morning excursions in the wood of Vincennes. Tartar had loved the country. The woods, the fields, and the flowers,—to range among them daily, openly and without fear, would be heaven!
To the Parisian all outside of Paris is country.
And to learn to read and to write and understand the newspapers and what was in books!
Yes, it seemed really too much, all at once. For of all other things coveted in this world, Fouchette deemed such a knowledge most desirable. Up to this moment it had been beyond the ordinary flight of her youthful imagination. It was one of the impossibilities,—like flying and finding a million of money. But now it had come to her. She might know something she had never seen, or of which she had never heard.
To accomplish all of this and to be in the country at the same time, what more could anybody wish?
Yet she was to have more. The inspector,—what was this wonderful man, anyhow, who knew everything and could do anything?—he, the inspector, had promised it. She was to have human kindness and love!
The inspector was a nice gentleman. And the agents,—it was all a lie about the agents de police. They were all nice men. She had hated and dreaded them; and had they not been good to her? Had they not taken her from the river and fed her and clothed her and visited with swift punishment those who had cruelly abused her?
Fouchette was learning rapidly. The change was so confusing, and events had chased one another so unceremoniously, that she must be pardoned if she grasped new ideas with more tenacity than accuracy. It is what all of us are doing day by day.