Accustomed to calm aspects of life, she turned, on the contrary, to

those of excitement. She loved the sea only for the sake of its storms,

and the green fields only when broken up by ruins.

She wanted to get some personal profit out of things, and she rejected

as useless all that did not contribute to the immediate desires of her

heart, being of a temperament more sentimental than artistic, looking

for emotions, not landscapes.

At the convent there was an old maid who came for a week each month to

mend the linen. Patronized by the clergy, because she belonged to an

ancient family of noblemen ruined by the Revolution, she dined in the

refectory at the table of the good sisters, and after the meal had a bit

of chat with them before going back to her work. The girls often slipped

out from the study to go and see her. She knew by heart the love songs

of the last century, and sang them in a low voice as she stitched away.

She told stories, gave them news, went errands in the town, and on

the sly lent the big girls some novel, that she always carried in the

pockets of her apron, and of which the good lady herself swallowed

long chapters in the intervals of her work. They were all love, lovers,

sweethearts, persecuted ladies fainting in lonely pavilions, postilions

killed at every stage, horses ridden to death on every page, sombre

forests, heartaches, vows, sobs, tears and kisses, little skiffs by

moonlight, nightingales in shady groves, "gentlemen" brave as lions,

gentle as lambs, virtuous as no one ever was, always well dressed, and

weeping like fountains. For six months, then, Emma, at fifteen years of

age, made her hands dirty with books from old lending libraries.

Through Walter Scott, later on, she fell in love with historical events,

dreamed of old chests, guard-rooms and minstrels. She would have liked

to live in some old manor-house, like those long-waisted chatelaines

who, in the shade of pointed arches, spent their days leaning on the

stone, chin in hand, watching a cavalier with white plume galloping on

his black horse from the distant fields. At this time she had a cult

for Mary Stuart and enthusiastic veneration for illustrious or unhappy

women. Joan of Arc, Heloise, Agnes Sorel, the beautiful Ferroniere, and

Clemence Isaure stood out to her like comets in the dark immensity of

heaven, where also were seen, lost in shadow, and all unconnected, St.

Louis with his oak, the dying Bayard, some cruelties of Louis XI, a

little of St. Bartholomew's Day, the plume of the Bearnais, and always

the remembrance of the plates painted in honour of Louis XIV.




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