They carried me upstairs to a garret and left me there, I know not for how many hours. Even yet, to-day, at my age, I recall the impression of that day and it seems to me that it lasted for an infinite time. It holds as much place in my memory as a whole year of other days which followed it.
The under-mistress came at breakfast-time. I had not ceased crying. If I had known what it was to die I should have killed myself.
“Will you hush?” said the under-mistress to me, striking me roughly. “Will you be good?”
This wicked woman seemed execrable to me, like the bad road of which my father had spoken. I told her so and the word avenged me. She was my first enemy. It was the first time that I had been beaten. I repeated, “Execrable, execrable!” She placed a piece of dry bread by my side and left me, saying:
“You shall obey.”
Madame Dufey had forgotten me, as my grandmother learned later. I have certainly never in all my life been so angry as I was at that closed door. I have never found people so implacable as they were to me that day.
From crying, screaming, and knocking against the door I fell down on the floor exhausted and went to sleep.
I awoke in Arthémise’s arms, who was weeping and frightened to see my swollen, tear-stained face. She had rocked me to sleep every night since I was three years old, telling me pretty stories of Caumenchon, and she kept saying now:
“They don’t love you any more, they don’t love you any more!”
Now, as I clung to Arthémise’s neck, I grew brave again and felt a great desire to return the harm they had done to me. I said to my nurse: