My mind, by this time, had become as active as my body, and I was very curious and full of questions. The Spanish ladies-in-waiting who formed our household were quite ignorant. Many of them could not read or write, and they could teach us nothing but old wives’ tales and silly superstitions. I had learned to read very young but I could not get books of the sort I needed. Outside of our school-books we had little but “The Lives of the Saints,” which was read to us every day—the life of the saint on the day dedicated to that saint—as the Bible is read in pious families of Protestants. I remember that I had “Robinson Crusoe” in French, and some books of Jules Verne, that were welcome because they told of travels and adventures in the world of which I wished to know. Otherwise our books were all religious; and I had found that I could not ask questions about religion.
For instance, a nun at the convent, giving us religious instruction in the mysteries of the creation, had said that the world must have been created because nothing could exist without a creator; and when I interrupted her to ask, childishly, who, then, had created the Creator, she replied that it was a mystery beyond our human comprehension. I asked her who had told her about it, and she was very angry, and punished me by making me copy out pages of Racine’s poems during the recreation hour. This method of teaching religion was not successful with me, because—not being an imaginative child—I was sceptical of anything that could be explained to me. And, being contemptuous of the ladies-in-waiting, who were very religious in an ignorant way, I became contemptuous of the superstitions which their ignorance had added to their faith.
They carried about with them great numbers of metal images of saints, blessed medals, and relics in little lockets, which they kissed and believed in as potent against all sorts of diseases and misfortunes. They had large pockets for the purpose under their skirts; and my sisters and I had the same kind of pockets, filled with the same things. It was not long before I had emptied mine to make room for the cakes which I used to smuggle from the table to eat at school, where our food was rather scanty. For such irreverences as this, and for laughing at incidents in the lives of the saints which amused me when they were read to us, I became rather a scandal to our household, and they would say to me, “You are only fit for America! You ought to be sent to America!”—since America was regarded as a barbarous place where the manners were bad. And so I came to think that if I could only take a ship and go to America I should be really happy.
The nuns were very sweet and gentle with me, but I would have liked them better if they had been rough. There was something in me that distrusted suavity and desired brusqueness. I was not sensitive about harsh contacts, and I did not fear or resent punishment. Consequently, I not only imposed myself on my sisters, who were less robust than I, but upon my teachers, who could not control my spirit. Mirrors being forbidden in the convent, I put sheets of paper behind the panes of glass in the doors, and dragged the girls to them to look at themselves. And this seemed an ingenious perversity that staggered the nuns.
My two sisters having gone through their preparation for First Communion, my mother took them to Rome to receive the sacrament from the hands of the Pope. She took me, too; and, although I had not been prepared, the Pope gave me communion at the same time, saying that I was a “little angel,” because I had fair hair and blue eyes. When I returned to the convent and the nuns heard that I had received communion without the preparation, they were outraged. “Well, then,” I said, “isn’t your Pope infallible?” And this shocked and silenced them. Altogether, although I lost many recreation hours by having to do “impositions” as punishment for small rebellions, school failed to subdue me, and I kept a wilful freedom of mind.
I had heard from the gossip of the household that my mother—who had no knowledge of the value of money—was spending so extravagantly that we should soon have nothing to live on. And this delighted me. I used to picture myself working hard to earn—perhaps by teaching languages or painting, of which I was very fond—and the joy of the thought was intense. My eldest sister suffered from headaches in school; she used to be sent often to the infirmary; and I would ask permission to go up to her and sit by her bedside, and tell her wonderful stories of my dreams for our future when we should be fighting for life.
It seemed to me the happiest, the most exciting thing, to be in such a struggle, among people who had to work and make their way, always busy and interested in something, and never shut up in idleness to be bored. No Cinderella ever invented for herself stories of rescue by Prince Charming with more longing than I looked forward to my escape from the sort of life with which Cinderella was rewarded. And I still think that I was wiser than she.
My grandmother, Queen Maria Cristina—the widow of Ferdinand VII. of Spain—was living in retirement in Normandy; she had lost her throne by marrying a Spanish officer of her escort; and she would tell me that she had never been so happy in Courts—never as happy as since she had been exiled with the man she loved. We went to visit her very often during our summers—a very clever old lady with a mind of her own—and I liked her the best of all my relatives.
Her story of her marriage with the officer (which she told me herself) made a deep impression on me. She had been on a journey through the mountains near Madrid, and the altitude had given her a bleeding at the nose. The ladies-in-waiting had given her their handkerchiefs, and she had used all her own, but the bleeding still continued, and she turned to the officer of her escort riding beside her carriage and asked him for his handkerchief. She did not know him; she had never spoken to him before; but she was in such distress that when he gave her his handkerchief she passed all the others to him without knowing what she was doing. He kissed them and put them in his breast. Then the ladies said to themselves, “Ah, the poor officer! Now he will be sent away to Cuba or the Philippines!” And they were sorry for him, because he was a very handsome man and very well liked.
Next morning he was summoned to a private audience with the Queen, and the ladies said, “The poor man! Why did he do it? What a mistake!” But when he came away from the audience he was not depressed, and it was understood that the Queen had reprimanded and forgiven him. He continued in attendance on her as an officer of the household, and it was not suspected until long afterwards that they had been secretly married. It seems incredible, but the Queen had several children by this marriage without it being known even to Court circles. She once opened Parliament a few hours after the birth of a child, going to the ceremony in a carriage, very weak, but determined to show herself to the people because a rumour of the birth had been circulated by her enemies. She was a woman of unconquerable will. When the truth of the marriage could no longer be concealed, and the people revolted, she left Spain with her husband, and was very happy, living near Havre with him and their children. She was a real grandmother to me, and my visits to her were always a delight.