But, to return to Saint-Just’s sister: She took a fancy to me. Living with my grandparents, whom I still considered young, I adored old people. Madame Decaisne one day read to me some of Saint-Just’s poetry. It was about a little shepherd leading his flock to pasture, and the unhappiness of roses because they had thorns. She threw so much feeling into the reading that I shed tears, and thereby won her heart and that of the Chevalier.
XI
A PAINFUL RETURN HOME
THE three weeks passed so quickly that I had written very seldom to my grandmother, not daring to speak to her about the conversations with my father, or of the impression they had made upon me. I said to myself it would be better to make my confession slowly. In like manner, as my father had enlightened me with regard to his ideas, I would enlighten my grandmother concerning mine. Moreover, I had not been converted. Saint-Just’s ferocity was absolved, for reasons I could not quite remember; my father, so good, so benevolent, was capable of becoming cruel after “provocation”—I remembered that word—all this aroused a great revolt in me, and overthrew my first enthusiasm.
There had been several “family dramas” on my account. I occupied too large a place in my father’s life, and my mother could not overcome that unfortunate jealousy which caused us all so much sorrow.
My father loved her passionately for her beauty, which should have given her every right to believe herself loved; I looked at her with admiration, and bestowed upon her a sort of worship; and my grandparents were very proud of her. But she had spoiled our mutual affection by her coldness, and destroyed our confidence in her love for us, because she constantly doubted our love; none of our assurances would convince her, whereas a careless word, spoken by chance, without any real intention of wounding her, became to her a proof of all she imagined, and then she became so unjust it made one believe she was hard-hearted. Whereas, in truth, her undeserved, cutting reproaches, her insinuations, her accusations, were only a sort of despair at not being able to force us to love her as she wished to be loved, and at not having won a larger amount of our affection precisely on account of that conduct which made us love her less.
My father wished to take me back to my grandmother himself. She opposed his wish, and it was she who accompanied me home. The pain she caused me during that short journey recalled to me my first day at school.
We were both mounted on the same donkey, and had not gone very far on our route when, the animal becoming fatigued, my mother got down. She talked as she walked along, while I, very proud, held the reins and did not wish to think of anything else.
My mother questioned me in a wearisome and annoying manner about my grandmother’s love for me. She made me impatient, and, not being accustomed to control myself, I answered two or three times:
“Mamma, I beg of you, leave me alone; you torment me more than the priest at confession.”