arose one September morning, my heart leaping with some vague thought of coming joy. It was eight o'clock. I pressed my forehead against the window-panes and gazed out, looking at I know not what. I had been roused with a start in the midst of a beautiful dream, and I rushed towards the light, as if in the hope of finding in the infinite space of the grey sky some explanation of the feelings that possessed me—the anxiety, and yet the bliss, of expectation. Expectation of what? I could not have answered that question then, any more than after much reflection I can do so now. I was on the eve of my fourteenth birthday, and I was in a state of expectation as to the future of my life. That particular morning seemed to me to be the precursor of a new era. I was not mistaken, for on that September day my fate was settled for me.
"I HAD BEEN ROUSED WITH A START IN THE MIDST OF A BEAUTIFUL DREAM."
From a Drawing by G. Clairin.
As if hypnotized by what was taking place in my mind, I remained with my forehead pressed against the window-pane, gazing in imagination through the halo of vapour formed by my breath at houses, palaces, carriages, jewels, pearls, which passed in fantasy before my eyes. Oh! what pearls there were! And there were princes and kings also; yes, I saw even kings! Oh! how fast imagination travels when left by its enemy, reason, free to roam alone! In my fancy I proudly rejected the princes, I rejected the kings, I refused the pearls and the palaces, and I declared that I was going to be a nun. For in the infinite grey sky I had caught a glimpse of the convent of Grand Champ, of my white bedroom, and of the small lamp that swung to and fro above the little Virgin which our hands had decorated with flowers. The king offered me a throne, but I preferred the throne of our Mother Superior, and I entertained a vague ambition to occupy it on some distant day. The king was heart-broken and dying of despair. Yes, mon Dieu! I preferred to the pearls that were offered me by princes the pearls of the rosary I was telling with my fingers; and no costume could compete in my mind with the black barège veil that fell like a soft shadow over the snowy white cambric that encircled the beloved faces of the nuns of Grand Champ.
I do not know how long I had been dreaming thus when I heard my mother's voice asking our old servant, Marguerite, if I were awake. With one bound I was back in bed, and I buried my face under the sheet. Mamma half-opened the door very gently and I pretended to wake up.
"How lazy you are to-day!" she said. I kissed her, and answered in a coaxing tone, "It is Thursday, and I have no music lesson."
"And are you glad?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," I replied, promptly.
My mother frowned; she adored music, and I hated the piano. She was so fond of music that, although she was then nearly thirty, she took lessons herself in order to encourage me to practise. What horrible torture it was! I used very wickedly to do my utmost to set at variance my mother and my music mistress. They were both of them excessively short-sighted. When my mother had practised a new piece three or four days she knew it by heart, and played it fairly well, to the astonishment of Mlle. Clarisse, my insufferable old teacher, who held the music in her hand and read every note with her nose nearly touching the page. One day I heard, with joy, a quarrel beginning between mamma and this disagreeable person, Mlle. Clarisse.