From this moment war was declared. Zizi, who did not forget the kick which Marie had given him, never saw her without showing his teeth, and if he came too near her, another kick sent him off again, without softening his resentment. Alphonse never met him without threatening him, either with his hand or his cane, and Mademoiselle Raymond, constantly occupied in running after her dog, and protecting him from his enemies, had not a moment's repose between her fears for Zizi's safety and her aversion for Marie, whose follies she eagerly seized upon; and Marie's follies were almost as frequent as her actions.
However, she did not often commit any before M. d'Aubecourt; she scarcely dared either to speak or move in his presence. At meals, during the first few days, it was impossible to make her eat; but as soon as they had risen from table, she could take a large slice of bread, and eat it while running in the garden, where Alphonse speedily joined her. With him she agreed better than with any one else in the house. Both were gay, livery, thoughtless, and enterprising, and vied with each other in all kinds of tricks and follies. Marie, who was very expert, taught Alphonse to throw stones at the cats, as they ran along the leads, and during this apprenticeship he had twice managed to break some panes of glass, one of which belonged to the window of Mademoiselle Raymond's room. In return, he taught his cousin to fence, and they often entered the house with their faces all scratched. Marie had also a method of pinning up her dress, so as to enable her to climb upon the trees and walls. Madame d'Aubecourt sometimes surprised her while engaged in this amusement, and reprimanded her severely. Marie immediately became quiet and modest, for she felt great respect for Madame d'Aubecourt, and would never have thought of disobeying her to her face, but as soon as she was out of sight, whether from thoughtlessness, or from not being aware of the necessity of obedience, a thing to which she had never been accustomed, she seemed to forget all that had been said to her. Alphonse occasionally reminded her of it, and to him she willingly listened, for she had great confidence in him. Neither was she obstinate, but she had never been taught to reflect, and her thoughts seldom extended beyond the moment; so that when she took a fancy into her head, she could think of nothing else. She spoke but little, and was almost constantly in motion. Motion, indeed, seemed to constitute her very existence. When her timidity compelled her to remain quiet, this repose was not turned to any advantage, in the way of reflection: the constraint she felt absorbed her mind, and she could think of nothing but the speediest means of escaping from it. Unlike other children, she made no remarks on what she saw around her. When asked whether she did not think the château de Guicheville much more beautiful than her nurse's cottage, she replied that she did; still she never thought of enjoying its comforts and conveniences, and she had more pleasure in sitting upon the tables than upon the chairs. Madame d'Aubecourt had a frock made for her like the every-day dress worn by Lucie, and she was delighted at seeing herself attired like a lady, but she always managed to have it too much on one side or the other, while the string belonging to the neck was very usually tied with that which belonged to the waist. She was constantly forgetting to put her stockings on, and her hair, which had been cut and arranged, was almost always in disorder. A pair of stays had been made for her, and she allowed them to be put on without any opposition, for she never resisted; but the moment afterwards the lace was burst and the bones broken; they were mended two or three times, and at length given up. On one occasion, Madame d'Aubecourt had sent her, accompanied by Gothon, to see her nurse. While the girl was gone into the village to execute a commission, Marie made her escape into the fields, in order to avoid being taken back. Half a day was consumed in seeking for her, and everything was in commotion at Guicheville, on account of the uneasiness occasioned by her protracted absence.
All these facts were carefully noted by Mademoiselle Raymond; nor had she any trouble in becoming acquainted with them, for they formed a perpetual subject of conversation between Lucie and Gothon. Lucie could not reconcile herself to the manners of her cousin; besides, her arrival at Guicheville had afforded her very little amusement, for Madame d'Aubecourt, fearful lest she should contract any of Marie's bad habits, left them but little together. Lucie, too, saw much less of her brother than formerly, for the moment he had finished his lessons, he ran off in search of Marie, to join him in those sports which were little suited to his sister's disposition, so that she sought amusement in discussing the new subjects for blame or astonishment, which Marie's conduct perpetually supplied. Gothon, her confidante, spoke of them in her turn to her godmother, Mademoiselle Raymond, and Mademoiselle Raymond discussed them with M. d'Aubecourt. He attached but little importance to them, so long as they did not decidedly affect himself; but after some time, when Marie had become accustomed to the persons and things about her, the circle of her follies widened, and at last reached him. Since she had dared to speak and move at table, she seldom spoke without a burst of noise; and if she turned round to look at anything, it was with so hasty a movement, that she upset her plate upon the floor, or shook the whole table. If she climbed upon an arm-chair in the drawing-room, for the purpose of reaching anything, she upset the chair, and fell with it, breaking one of its arms, and with the foot tearing a table-cover, which happened to be near it. Alphonse had frequently warned her not to enter his grandfather's garden; but this advice was forgotten as soon as the garden happened to be the shortest way from one place to another; or that the shuttlecock had chanced to fall into it, or that she wanted to pursue a cat, or a butterfly. On such occasions, M. d'Aubecourt always found a branch broken off, a rose-bush or a border trodden down; and Mademoiselle Raymond, whose window looked upon the garden, had always seen Marie either going in, or coming out of it. These multiplied vexations tormented M. d'Aubecourt all the more, from his not complaining of them openly, but only by indirect allusions, as is often the case with the aged. Sometimes he would say that, at his time of life, one could seldom hope to be master of his own house, and that it was natural that people should trouble themselves very little about the aged, or their inconveniences. At another time, he would assure them that they might do just what they pleased with his garden, and that he should not trouble himself any more about it. Madame d'Aubecourt understood all this, and was greatly grieved, and as she perceived that Marie's presence occasioned him a constantly increasing annoyance, she kept her away from him as much as possible.
But the necessity of doing this was very painful to her, for she felt that the only means of making anything of Marie was by gaining her confidence, which could only be done by degrees; by seldom quitting her, by taking an interest in what amused and pleased her, by endeavouring to give her an interest in things with which she was as yet unacquainted, by talking to her, in order to oblige her to reflect, and thus implant some ideas in her mind, which was naturally quick enough, but totally devoid of culture. Could she have followed her own wishes, she would, in the first instance, have overlooked all faults arising from impetuosity, want of reflection, or ignorance, reserving her severity for grave occasions, or rather without making use of any severity, she might have succeeded in leading Marie by the sole desire of giving her satisfaction. Whereas, instead of that, obliged to be incessantly scolding her for faults slight enough in themselves, but seriously annoying to M. d'Aubecourt, she had no means of insisting, with particular emphasis, on more important matters. Besides, it happened that, for the first time in his life, M. d'Aubecourt had a violent attack of the gout, and as he was unable to walk, the society of his daughter-in-law had become indispensable to him, and she seldom quitted his room; so that Marie was more than ever left to herself, with no other guardian or preceptor than Alphonse.
Nor was he altogether useless to her. Her want of sense rendered him more reasonable: the defects of her education made him appreciate the advantages he had derived from his own; he corrected her whenever she made use of any vulgar expressions; he taught her to speak French, and scolded her if she happened to repeat any word for which she had already been reprimanded, and by his mother's advice he made her repeat the reading lesson which Madame d'Aubecourt gave him every morning. Marie took great pleasure in doing everything required by Alphonse, who was fond of her, and liked to be with her, and whose presence never embarrassed her, as he had similar tastes with herself. Therefore, when she had read well, and he perceived she took pains to pronounce the words he had taught her, he would not patiently suffer her to be found fault with; and he was fond of boasting of her dexterity and intelligence in their games, and of the vivacity and at the same time gentleness of her disposition.
And in truth, as he observed to his mother, no one had ever seen Marie in a passion, nor had she ever been known to exhibit any impatience at being kept waiting, or any irritability when contradicted. Always ready to oblige, the ball of worsted had no sooner fallen on the floor, than she had picked it up, and she was always the first to run and fetch Madame d'Aubecourt's handkerchief from the other end of the room. If, while eating her breakfast, she saw any poor person, she was sure to give him almost the whole of her bread; and one day, when a cat had flown at Zizi, and was biting him, Marie, notwithstanding the scratching and anger of the animal, tore him from Zizi's back, where he had already drawn blood, and threw him to a great distance; at the same time becoming angry with Alphonse, for the first time in her life, because he laughed at Zizi's predicament, instead of trying to extricate him. Alphonse laughed still more at his cousin's anger, but he related the circumstance to his mother. Lucie, who had also seen what Marie had done, told Gothon of it, and she informed Mademoiselle Raymond; but Mademoiselle Raymond was so much excited against Marie, that she would not have been moved by anything that came from her, even had Zizi himself related it to her.
However, these various manifestations of Marie's kindness began to increase her cousin's affection for her. The feast of Corpus Christi was drawing near, and Lucy had worked for several days with great industry upon an ornament, designed for the altar which was to be erected in the court-yard of the château. Marie had watched her working with much pleasure; she had a great respect for the ceremonies of the church, and this was about the whole amount of the religious education her nurse had been able to impart to her. Deprived for a long time of the clergy and the mass, the poor woman had regretted them exceedingly, and when the practices of religion were re-established, she experienced great delight, in which Marie shared, though without very well knowing why, for her knowledge did not extend very far; but she was always angry when the little boys of the village made use of any irreligious expressions, and told them that God would punish them. She had learned by heart the prayers, in order to sing them at church with the priests, and Lucie was somewhat embarrassed by this, because it attracted attention to them; but Madame d'Aubecourt allowed her to continue the practice, as she sung with earnestness, and was thereby kept quiet in church. She was fond of going to church, because her nurse had told her to pray for her; and now she thought she was performing a meritorious act, in standing by Lucie's frame, while the latter worked the ornament for the altar, and assisting her by cutting her silks, threading her needles, and handing her the scissors.
Since the day that she made her escape into the fields in order to avoid returning to Guicheville, she had never been allowed to visit her nurse; this favour was denied under pretence of punishing her, but in reality because the poor woman was so ill that she no longer seemed conscious of anything. Madame d'Aubecourt had been several times to see her, but without being recognised. She took care that she wanted nothing that could alleviate her condition, but she was anxious to spare Marie so sad a scene. Marie, taken up with a crowd of objects, only thought of her nurse occasionally, and then she manifested great impatience to go and see her. She had no idea of her being in danger, and flattered herself, as she had been led to expect, that when she recovered, she would come to Guicheville. The evening before the fête, being in the yard, she saw a peasant who had come from the village in which her nurse lived. She ran to him, asked him how her nurse was, and whether she would soon be able to come to Guicheville.
"Oh! poor woman," said the peasant, shaking his head, "she will go nowhere but to the other world, every one says that she will not be long here."
Marie was struck as with a thunderbolt. This idea had never occurred to her. Pale and trembling, she asked the man whether her nurse had got worse, and how and when she had become so.