My Double Life | Page 2

way off, even in our epoch of velocity! In those days
it was the end of the world. Fortunately my nurse was, it appears, a
good, kind woman, and, as her own child had died, she had only me to
love. But she loved after the manner of poor people, when she had
time.
One day, as her husband was ill, she went into the field to help gather
in potatoes; the over-damp soil was rotting them, and there was no time
to be lost. She left me in charge of her husband, who was lying on his
Breton bedstead suffering from a bad attack of lumbago. The good
woman had placed me in my high chair, and had been careful to put in
the wooden peg which supported the narrow table for my toys. She
threw a faggot in the grate, and said to me in Breton language (until the
age of four I only understood Breton), "Be a good girl, Milk Blossom."
That was my only name at the time. When she had gone, I tried to
withdraw the wooden peg which she had taken so much trouble to put
in place. Finally I succeeded in pushing aside the little rampart. I
wanted to reach the ground, but--poor little me!--I fell into the fire,
which was burning joyfully.
The screams of my foster-father, who could not move, brought in some
neighbours. I was thrown, all smoking, into a large pail of fresh milk.
My aunts were informed of what had happened: they communicated the
news to my mother, and for the next four days that quiet part of the
country was ploughed by stage-coaches which arrived in rapid
succession. My aunts came from all parts of the world, and my mother,
in the greatest alarm, hastened from Brussels, with Baron Larrey, one
of her friends, who was a young doctor, just beginning to acquire
celebrity, and a house surgeon whom Baron Larrey had brought with
him. I have been told since that nothing was so painful to witness and
yet so charming as my mother's despair. The doctor approved of the
"mask of butter," which was changed every two hours.

Dear Baron Larrey! I often saw him afterwards, and now and again we
shall meet him in the pages of my Memoirs. He used to tell me in such
charming fashion how those kind folks loved Milk Blossom. And he
could never refrain from laughing at the thought of that butter. There
was butter everywhere, he used to say: on the bedsteads, on the
cupboards, on the chairs, on the tables, hanging up on nails in bladders.
All the neighbours used to bring butter to make masks for Milk
Blossom.
Mother, adorably beautiful, looked like a Madonna, with her golden
hair and her eyes fringed with such long lashes that they made a
shadow on her cheeks when she looked down.
She distributed money on all sides. She would have given her golden
hair, her slender white fingers, her tiny feet, her life itself, in order to
save her child. And she was as sincere in her despair and her love as in
her unconscious forgetfulness. Baron Larrey returned to Paris, leaving
my mother, Aunt Rosine, and the surgeon with me. Forty-two days
later, mother took back in triumph to Paris the nurse, the foster-father,
and me, and installed us in a little house at Neuilly, on the banks of the
Seine. I had not even a scar, it appears. My skin was rather too bright a
pink, but that was all. My mother, happy and trustful once more, began
to travel again, leaving me in care of my aunts.
Two years were spent in the little garden at Neuilly, which was full of
horrible dahlias growing close together and coloured like wooden balls.
My aunts never came there. My mother used to send money, bon-bons,
and toys. The foster-father died, and my nurse married a concierge,
who used to pull open the door at 65 Rue de Provence.
Not knowing where to find my mother, and not being able to write, my
nurse--without telling any of my friends--took me with her to her new
abode.
The change delighted me. I was five years old at the time, and I
remember the day as if it were yesterday. My nurse's abode was just
over the doorway of the house, and the window was framed in the
heavy and monumental door. From outside I thought it was beautiful,

and I began to clap my hands on reaching the house. It was towards
five o'clock in the evening, in the month of November, when
everything looks grey. I was put to bed, and no doubt I went to sleep at
once, for there end my recollections of that day.
The next morning