"Oh, yes, I do. Rachel is an actress!"
"You know Rachel?" asked mamma, getting up.
"Oh, yes; she came to the convent once to see little Adèle Sarony. She went all over the convent and into the garden, and she had to sit down because she could not get her breath. They fetched her something to bring her round, and she was so pale—oh, so pale! I was very sorry for her, and Sister Appoline told me that what she did was killing her, for she was an actress, and so I won't be an actress, I won't!"
I had said all this in a breath, with my cheeks on fire and my voice hard.
I remembered all that Sister Appoline had told me, and Mother Sainte-Sophie, too, the Superior of the convent. I remembered, too, that when Rachel had gone out of the garden, looking very pale and holding a lady's arm for support, a little girl had put her tongue out at her. I did not want people to put out their tongues at me when I was grown up. There were a hundred other things, too, to which I objected, and about which I have only a vague memory now.
My godfather laughed heartily, but my uncle was very grave. The others discussed the matter in a very excited way with my mother, who looked weary and bored. Mlle. de Brabender and Mme. Guérard were arguing in a low voice, and I thought of the aristocratic man who had just left us. I was very angry with him, for this idea of the Conservatoire was his. "Conservatoire!" This word frightened me. It was he who wanted me to be an actress, and now he had disappeared, and I could not talk the matter over with him. He had gone away smiling and tranquil, patting my head in the most ordinary yet friendly way. He had gone off without troubling a straw about the poor little, meagre child whose future was being discussed. "Send her to the Conservatoire," and this phrase, that had come to his lips so easily, was like a veritable bomb hurled into my life. I, the little, dreamy child, who that morning had rejected princes and kings; I, whose trembling fingers had only that morning told over whole rosaries of dreams and fancies; I, who only a few hours before had felt my heart beat wildly with some inexplicable emotion, and who had got up expecting some great event to happen during the day! Everything had given way under that phrase, which seemed as heavy as lead and as murderous as a cannon-ball. Send her to the Conservatoire!
I guessed somehow that that phrase was destined to be the finger-post of my life. All these people had stopped at the bend of the road where there were crossways.
Send her to the Conservatoire! I wanted to be a nun, and they all thought that absurd, idiotic, unreasonable. Those words, "Send her to the Conservatoire," had opened up a new field of discussion, widened the horizon of the future. My uncle, Félix Faure, and Mlle. de Brabender were the only ones who disapproved of this idea, but they were in the minority—a passive minority which felt for me. I got very nervous and excited, and my mother sent me away. Mlle. de Brabender tried to console me. Mme. Guérard said that this career had its advantages. Mlle. de Brabender considered that the convent would have a great fascination for so dreamy a nature as mine. The one was very religious and a great church-goer, and the other was a pagan in the purest acceptation of that word, and yet the two women got on very well together, thanks to their affectionate devotion to me.
Mme. Guérard adored the proud rebelliousness of my nature, my pretty face, and the slenderness of my figure; Mlle. de Brabender was touched by my delicate health. She spent no end of time trying to smooth my refractory hair. She endeavoured to comfort me when I was jealous at not being loved as much as my sister; but what she liked best about me was my voice. She always declared that my voice was modulated for prayers, and my delight in the convent appeared to her quite natural. She loved me with a gentle, pious affection, and Mme. Guérard loved me with bursts of paganism. These two women, whose memory is still dear to me, shared me between them, and made the best of my good qualities and my faults. I certainly owe to both of them this study of myself and the vision I have of myself.
The day was destined to end in the strangest of fashions. Mme. Guérard had gone back to her apartment upstairs, and I was lying back on a little straw arm-chair, which was the most ornamental piece of furniture in my room. I felt very drowsy, and was holding Mlle. de Brabender's hand in mine when the door opened and my aunt entered, followed by my mother. I can see them now—my aunt in her dress of puce silk trimmed with fur, her brown velvet hat tied under her chin with long, wide strings, and mamma, who had taken off her dress and put on a white woollen dressing-gown. She always detested keeping on her dress in the house, and I understood by her change of costume that everyone had gone and that my aunt was ready to leave. I got up from my arm-chair, but mamma made me sit down again.