I was to go back to work once more. I accepted the situation willingly, to the great surprise of mamma, who loved travelling, but detested the actual moving from one place to another.
I was delighted at the idea of the re-packing of the parcels and trunks, of being seated in things that moved along, of seeing again all the villages, towns, people, and trees, which changed all the time. I wanted to take my goats with me, but my mother nearly had a fit.
“You are mad!” she exclaimed. “Seven goats in a train and in a carriage! Where could you put them? No, a hundred times no!”
She finally consented to my taking two of them and a blackbird that one of the mountaineers had given me. And so we returned to the convent.
I was received there with such sincere joy that I felt very happy again immediately. I was allowed to keep my two goats there, and to have them out at playtime. We had great fun with them: they used to butt us and we used to butt them, and we laughed, frolicked, and were very foolish. And yet I was nearly fourteen at this time; but I was very puny and childish.
I stayed at the convent another ten months without learning anything more. The idea of becoming a nun always haunted me, but I was no longer mystic.
My godfather looked upon me as the greatest dunce of a child. I worked, though, during the holidays, and I used to have lessons with Sophie Croizette, who lived near to our country house. This gave a slight impetus to me in my studies, but it was only slight. Sophie was very gay, and what we liked best was to go to the museum, where her sister Pauline, who was later on to become Madame Carolus Duran, was copying pictures by the great masters.
Pauline was as cold and calm as Sophie was charming, talkative, and noisy. Pauline Croizette was beautiful, but I liked Sophie better—she was more gracious and pretty. Madame Croizette, their mother, always seemed sad and resigned. She had given up her career very early. She had been a dancer at the opera in St. Petersburg, and had been very much adored and flattered and spoiled. I fancy it was the birth of Sophie that had compelled her to leave the stage. Her money had then been injudiciously invested, and she had been ruined. She was very distinguished-looking; her face had a kind expression; there was an infinite melancholy about her, and people were instinctively drawn towards her. Mamma and she had made each other’s acquaintance while listening to the music in the park at Versailles, and for some time we saw a great deal of one another.
Sophie and I had some fine games in that magnificent park. Our greatest joy, though, was to go to Madame Masson’s in the Rue de la Gare. Madame Masson had a curiosity shop. Her daughter Cécile was a perfect little beauty. We three used to delight in changing the tickets on the vases, snuff-boxes, fans, and jewels, and then when poor M. Masson came back with a rich customer—for Masson the antiquary enjoyed a world-wide reputation—Sophie and I used to hide so that we should see his fury. Cécile, with an innocent air, would be helping her mother, and glancing slyly at us from time to time.
The whirl of life separated me brusquely from all these people whom I loved, and an incident, trivial in itself, caused me to leave the convent earlier than my mother wished.