But one day in this same snowy and fairy-like garden, where everything was so dear and precious to me, Blondeau seized me by the hand and began to walk rapidly. Although I asked him what it meant, he did not answer me.
“Let us walk around the garden,” he replied to all my questions.
“Walk around it, Blondeau! We have already done so four times, and you want to begin again. Ah! no, indeed! you must tell me what is the matter with you.”
He was so agitated I was afraid he had become mad, and I was worried more than can be imagined. My heart stood still to see him like this and I could neither breathe nor walk. I drew my hand suddenly from his, and, planting myself before him, I said:
“Speak to me, Blondeau, for I think you are crazy.”
“I wish I were,” he replied, despairingly, “so as not to make you suffer the dreadful sorrow I am going to cause you. Ah! your grandmother has given me a nice errand to perform. I was too stupid, truly, to take upon myself the duty of telling you such news. I wish I were a hundred feet underground.”
“Well, what is it, Blondeau? You are killing me!”
He seized my hand again and went around the garden almost running, then he stopped suddenly, having at last found the courage to say to me:
“Juliette, my darling child, you know that Madame Dufey has sold her boarding-school to the Demoiselles André, your mother’s friends, who knew them in the hamlet that was burned down in the first days of your parents’ marriage—the hamlet where your grandfather’s uncle lived.”
“Yes, I know, and those ladies are very nice. I have seen them. They told me they cherished a very dear memory of my mother, and would be happy to extend their faithful affection to her daughter. I thought the phrase very pretty and have remembered it. What sorrow do you think I can feel from them?”