The Lily of the Valley | Page 3

is a man, was the favorite of my father, the idol of my mother,
and consequently the sovereign of the house. He was robust and
well-made, and had a tutor. I, puny and even sickly, was sent at five
years of age as day pupil to a school in the town; taken in the morning
and brought back at night by my father's valet. I was sent with a scanty
lunch, while my school-fellows brought plenty of good food. This
trifling contrast between my privations and their prosperity made me
suffer deeply. The famous potted pork prepared at Tours and called
"rillettes" and "rillons" was the chief feature of their mid-day meal,

between the early breakfast and the parent's dinner, which was ready
when we returned from school. This preparation of meat, much prized
by certain gourmands, is seldom seen at Tours on aristocratic tables; if
I had ever heard of it before I went to school, I certainly had never had
the happiness of seeing that brown mess spread on slices of bread and
butter. Nevertheless, my desire for those "rillons" was so great that it
grew to be a fixed idea, like the longing of an elegant Parisian duchess
for the stews cooked by a porter's wife,--longings which, being a
woman, she found means to satisfy. Children guess each other's
covetousness, just as you are able to read a man's love, by the look in
the eyes; consequently I became an admirable butt for ridicule. My
comrades, nearly all belonging to the lower bourgeoisie, would show
me their "rillons" and ask if I knew how they were made and where
they were sold, and why it was that I never had any. They licked their
lips as they talked of them--scraps of pork pressed in their own fat and
looking like cooked truffles; they inspected my lunch-basket, and
finding nothing better than Olivet cheese or dried fruits, they plagued
me with questions: "Is that all you have? have you really nothing
else?"--speeches which made me realize the difference between my
brother and myself.
This contrast between my own abandonment and the happiness of
others nipped the roses of my childhood and blighted my budding
youth. The first time that I, mistaking my comrades' actions for
generosity, put forth my hand to take the dainty I had so long coveted
and which was now hypocritically held out to me, my tormentor pulled
back his slice to the great delight of his comrades who were expecting
that result. If noble and distinguished minds are, as we often find them,
capable of vanity, can we blame the child who weeps when despised
and jeered at? Under such a trial many boys would have turned into
gluttons and cringing beggars. I fought to escape my persecutors. The
courage of despair made me formidable; but I was hated, and thus had
no protection against treachery. One evening as I left school I was
struck in the back by a handful of small stones tied in a handkerchief.
When the valet, who punished the perpetrator, told this to my mother
she exclaimed: "That dreadful child! he will always be a torment to us."

Finding that I inspired in my schoolmates the same repulsion that was
felt for me by my family, I sank into a horrible distrust of myself. A
second fall of snow checked the seeds that were germinating in my soul.
The boys whom I most liked were notorious scamps; this fact roused
my pride and I held aloof. Again I was shut up within myself and had
no vent for the feelings with which my heart was full. The master of the
school, observing that I was gloomy, disliked by my comrades, and
always alone, confirmed the family verdict as to my sulky temper. As
soon as I could read and write, my mother transferred me to
Pont-le-Voy, a school in charge of Oratorians who took boys of my age
into a form called the "class of the Latin steps" where dull lads with
torpid brains were apt to linger.
There I remained eight years without seeing my family; living the life
of a pariah,--partly for the following reason. I received but three francs
a month pocket-money, a sum barely sufficient to buy the pens, ink,
paper, knives, and rules which we were forced to supply ourselves.
Unable to buy stilts or skipping-ropes, or any of the things that were
used in the playground, I was driven out of the games; to gain
admission on suffrage I should have had to toady the rich and flatter the
strong of my division. My heart rose against either of these meannesses,
which, however, most children readily employ. I lived under a tree, lost
in dejected thought, or reading the books distributed to us monthly by