The influence of the colonel (who now displayed to Sylvie the graces of a courtier, in marked contradiction to his usual military brusqueness), together with that of the astute Vinet, was soon to harm the Breton child. Shut up in the house, no longer allowed to go out except in company with her old cousin, Pierrette, that pretty little squirrel, was at the mercy of the incessant cry, "Don't touch that, child, let that alone!" She was perpetually being lectured on her carriage and behavior; if she stooped or rounded her shoulders her cousin would call to her to be as erect as herself (Sylvie was rigid as a soldier presenting arms to his colonel); sometimes indeed the ill-natured old maid enforced the order by slaps on the back to make the girl straighten up.
Thus the free and joyous little child of the Marais learned by degrees to repress all liveliness and to make herself, as best she could, an automaton.
V
HISTORY OF POOR COUSINS IN THE HOME OF RICH ONES
One evening, which marked the beginning of Pierrette's second phase of life in her cousin's house, the child, whom the three guests had not seen during the evening, came into the room to kiss her relatives and say good-night to the company. Sylvie turned her cheek coldly to the pretty creature, as if to avoid kissing her. The motion was so cruelly significant that the tears sprang to Pierrette's eyes.
"Did you prick yourself, little girl?" said the atrocious Vinet.
"What is the matter?" asked Sylvie, severely.
"Nothing," said the poor child, going up to Rogron.
"Nothing?" said Sylvie, "that's nonsense; nobody cries for nothing."
"What is it, my little darling?" said Madame Vinet.
"My rich cousin isn't as kind to me as my poor grandmother was," sobbed Pierrette.
"Your grandmother took your money," said Sylvie, "and your cousin will leave you hers."
The colonel and the lawyer glanced at each other.
"I would rather be robbed and loved," said Pierrette.
"Then you shall be sent back whence you came."
"But what has the dear little thing done?" asked Madame Vinet.
Vinet gave his wife the terrible, fixed, cold look with which men enforce their absolute dominion. The hapless helot, punished incessantly for not having the one thing that was wanted of her, a fortune, took up her cards.
"What has she done?" said Sylvie, throwing up her head with such violence that the yellow wall-flowers in her cap nodded. "She is always looking about to annoy us. She opened my watch to see the inside, and meddled with the wheel and broke the mainspring. Mademoiselle pays no heed to what is said to her. I am all day long telling her to take care of things, and I might just as well talk to that lamp."
Pierrette, ashamed at being reproved before strangers, crept softly out of the room.
"I am thinking all the time how to subdue that child," said Rogron.
"Isn't she old enough to go to school?" asked Madame Vinet.
Again she was silenced by a look from her husband, who had been careful to tell her nothing of his own or the colonel's schemes.
"This is what comes of taking charge of other people's children!" cried the colonel. "You may still have some of your own, you or your brother. Why don't you both marry?"
Sylvie smiled agreeably on the colonel. For the first time in her life she met a man to whom the idea that she could marry did not seem absurd.
"Madame Vinet is right," cried Rogron; "perhaps teaching would keep
Pierrette quiet. A master wouldn't cost much."
The colonel's remark so preoccupied Sylvie that she made no answer to her brother.
"If you are willing to be security for that opposition journal I was talking to you about," said Vinet, "you will find an excellent master for the little cousin in the managing editor; we intend to engage that poor schoolmaster who lost his employment through the encroachments of the clergy. My wife is right; Pierrette is a rough diamond that wants polishing."
"I thought you were a baron," said Sylvie to the colonel, while the cards were being dealt, and after a long pause in which they had all been rather thoughtful.
"Yes; but when I was made baron, in 1814, after the battle of Nangis, where my regiment performed miracles, I had money and influence enough to secure the rank. But now my barony is like the grade of general which I held in 1815—it needs a revolution to give it back to me."
"If you will secure my endorsement by a mortgage," said Rogron, answering Vinet after long consideration, "I will give it."
"That can easily be arranged," said Vinet. "The new paper will soon restore the colonel's rights, and make your salon more powerful in Provins than those of Tiphaine and company."
"How so?" asked Sylvie.
While his wife was dealing and Vinet himself explaining the importance they would all gain by the publication of an independent newspaper, Pierrette was dissolved in tears; her heart and her mind were one in this matter; she felt and knew that her cousin was more to blame than she was. The little country girl instinctively understood that charity and benevolence ought to be a complete offering. She hated her handsome frocks and all the things that were made for her; she was forced to pay too dearly for such benefits. She wept with vexation at having given cause for complaint against her, and resolved to behave in future in such a way as to compel her cousins to find no further fault with her. The thought then came into her mind how grand Brigaut had been in giving her all his savings without a word. Poor child! she fancied her troubles were now at their worst; she little knew that other misfortunes were even now being planned for her in the salon.
A few days later Pierrette had a writing-master. She was taught to read, write, and cipher. Enormous injury was thus supposed to be done to the Rogrons' house. Ink-spots were found on the tables, on the furniture, on Pierrette's clothes; copy-books and pens were left about; sand was scattered everywhere, books were torn and dog's-eared as the result of these lessons. She was told in harsh terms that she would have to earn her own living, and not be a burden to others. As she listened to these cruel remarks Pierrette's throat contracted violently with acute pain, her heart throbbed. She was forced to restrain her tears, or she was scolded for weeping and told it was an insult to the kindness of her magnanimous cousins. Rogron had found the life that suited him. He scolded Pierrette as he used to scold his clerks; he would call her when at play, and compel her to study; he made her repeat her lessons, and became himself the almost savage master of the poor child. Sylvie, on her side, considered it a duty to teach Pierrette the little that she knew herself about women's work. Neither Rogron nor his sister had the slightest softness in their natures. Their narrow minds, which found real pleasure in worrying the poor child, passed insensibly from outward kindness to extreme severity. This severity was necessitated, they believed, by what they called the self-will of the child, which had not been broken when young and was very obstinate. Her masters were ignorant how to give to their instructions a form suited to the intelligence of the pupil—a thing, by the bye, which marks the difference between public and private education. The fault was far less with Pierrette than with her cousins. It took her an infinite length of time to learn the rudiments. She was called stupid and dull, clumsy and awkward for mere nothings. Incessantly abused in words, the child suffered still more from the harsh looks of her cousins. She acquired the doltish ways of a sheep; she dared not do anything of her own impulse, for all she did was misinterpreted, misjudged, and ill-received. In all things she awaited silently the good pleasure and the orders of her cousins, keeping her thoughts within her own mind and sheltering herself behind a passive obedience. Her brilliant colors began