Jacqueline, vol 3 | Page 4

to sample the author's ideas before making
an entire meal of them. D.W.]

JACQUELINE
By THERESE BENTZON (MME. BLANC)

BOOK 3.

CHAPTER XIV
BITTER DISILLUSION
Some people in this world who turn round and round in a daily circle of
small things, like squirrels in a cage, have no idea of the pleasure a
young creature, conscious of courage, has in trying its strength; this
struggle with fortune loses its charm as it grows longer and longer and
more and more difficult, but at the beginning it is an almost certain
remedy for sorrow.
To her resolve to make head against misfortune Jacqueline owed the
fact that she did not fall into those morbid reveries which might have
converted her passing fancy for a man who was simply a male flirt into
the importance of a lost love. Is there any human being conscious of
energy, and with faith in his or her own powers, who has not wished to
know something of adversity in order to rise to the occasion and
confront it? To say nothing of the pleasure there is in eating brown
bread, when one has been fed only on cake, or of the satisfaction that a
child feels when, after strict discipline, he is left to do as he likes, to say
nothing of the pleasure ladies boarding in nunneries are sure to feel on
reentering the world, at recovering their liberty, Jacqueline by nature
loved independence, and she was attracted by the novelty of her
situation as larks are attracted by a mirror. She was curious to know
what life held for her in reserve, and she was extremely anxious to
repair the error she had committed in giving way to a feeling of which
she was now ashamed. What could do this better than hard work? To
owe everything to herself, to her talents, to her efforts, to her industry,
such was Jacqueline's ideal of her future life.
She had, before this, crowned her brilliant reputation in the 'cours' of M.
Regis by passing her preliminary examination at the Sorbonne; she was
confident of attaining the highest degree--the 'brevet superieur', and
while pursuing her own studies she hoped to give lessons in music and
in foreign languages, etc. Thus assured of making her own living, she
could afford to despise the discreditable happiness of Madame de

Nailles, who, she had no doubt, would shortly become Madame Marien;
also the crooked ways in which M. de Cymier might pursue his
fortune-hunting. She said to herself that she should never marry; that
she had other objects of interest; that marriage was for those who had
nothing better before them; and the world appeared to her under a new
aspect, a sphere of useful activity full of possibilities, of infinite variety,
and abounding in interests. Marriage might be all very well for rich
girls, who unhappily were objects of value to be bought and sold; her
semi-poverty gave her the right to break the chains that hampered the
career of other well-born women--she would make her own way in the
world like a man.
Thus, at eighteen, youth is ready to set sail in a light skiff on a rough
sea, having laid in a good store of imagination and of courage, of
childlike ignorance and self-esteem.
No doubt she would meet with some difficulties; that thought did but
excite her ardor. No doubt Madame de Nailles would try to keep her
with her, and Jacqueline had provided herself beforehand with some
double- edged remarks by way of weapons, which she intended to use
according to circumstances. But all these preparations for defense or
attack proved unnecessary. When she told the Baroness of her plans she
met with no opposition. She had expected that her project of separation
would highly displease her stepmother; on the contrary, Madame de
Nailles discussed her projects quietly, affecting to consider them
merely temporary, but with no indication of dissatisfaction or resistance.
In truth she was not sorry that Jacqueline, whose companionship
became more and more embarrassing every day, had cut the knot of a
difficult position by a piece of wilfulness and perversity which seemed
to put her in the wrong. The necessity she would have been under of
crushing such a girl, who was now eighteen, would have been
distasteful and unprofitable; she was very glad to get rid of her
stepdaughter, always provided it could be done decently and without
scandal. Those two, who had once so loved each other and who were
now sharers in the same sorrows, became enemies-- two hostile parties,
which only skilful strategy could ever again bring together. They tacitly
agreed to certain conditions: they would save appearances; they would

remain on outwardly good terms with each other whatever happened,
and above all they would