“I am a philosopher, I am strong-minded!”
I went to board at school during the month preceding my first communion, the dean, finding I was not preparing myself well for the ceremony at my grandparents’, induced them to let me absent myself from home until the great day. Maribert had succeeded in having me for neighbour in the dormitory, and she kept by me at recreations. During class hours, by the means of little notes, which she would slip into my hands, she tried to influence my mind to unbelief. She endeavoured to prove to me that the dean was in no wise evangelical; that the vicar, who instructed us, preferred a good dinner to a good mass; that the Mlles. André, our mistresses, were much more interested in not losing their pupils than in teaching and improving them.
“Now, as to myself,” she said, “they should send me away; they know very well that I change all the ideas I wish to change; that I am a disturber; that I shall not make my first communion seriously; that I will prevent others—you, first of all—from making it with the necessary unction and devotion; and yet they keep me here—me, the black sheep of the flock!”
I was badly influenced by Maribert, and they would have done better to have me with grandmother, who, although at this time too occupied with the things of this world to give me great spiritual help, would have done all she could to increase my faith.
The morning of the day of my first communion I was sad, discontented, I did not feel as I should have felt, and I envied the happiness of those who, having had the strength to resist Maribert’s diabolical influence, wore on their faces an expression of beatitude. As we were leaving for the church, Maribert slipped a piece of chocolate into my hand, saying, with her shining, demoniacal eyes looking at me: “Eat it!”
And, at the same time, I heard her crunching the half of the piece she had given to me.
I threw the chocolate in her face. Ah, no! that was too much! I, too, wanted to be strong-minded, but I did not wish to commit a sacrilege, to lie, to receive communion after having eaten.
I suddenly realised my friend’s evil-doing, and I struggled instantly to wrench out from my mind the ideas she had implanted in it; they were not numerous, however, for we possessed but few tastes in common. However, a great sadness took possession of me; had I not broken with a confidante, a friend of four years’ standing? (Years are so long in childhood!)
Maribert, alas! had made me lose enthusiasm for prayer, and that enthusiasm alone, on such a day as this, could have consoled me for the heartache I suffered. I was overcome to such a degree that my tears fell without my knowing it.
“You are sillier than the silliest,” Maribert said to me. “I will never speak to you again as long as I live.”