I began to neglect my lessons, sometimes made an excuse, but
oftener remained away without offering any explanation.
On my arrival one afternoon, after having repeatedly stayed away, the
young lady met me with some temper, and asked the reason of my failures
to come, plainly enough irritated and alarmed at my indifference, which
after all was only the reflection of her own. I promised politely to be
more regular in future. To insure this, she involuntarily became more
attentive.
She yawned no more. I did not stay away again.
She began to take an interest herself in this eldest pupil of hers, who
at 24 years of age looked 20 and who was acquainted with all sorts of
things about conditions, countries, and people of which she knew
nothing.
She had been so strictly brought up that nearly all secular reading was
forbidden to her, and she had never been to any theatre, not even the
Theatre Francais. She had not read Victor Hugo, Lamartine, or Musset,
had not even dared to read _Paul et Virginie_, only knew expurgated
editions of Corneille, Racine and Moliere. She was sincerely clerical,
had early been somewhat influenced by her cousin, later the well-known
Roman Catholic author, Ernest Hello, and in our conversations was always
ready to take the part of the Jesuits against Pascal; what the latter
had attacked were some antiquated and long-abandoned doctrinal books;
even if there were defects in the teaching of certain Catholic
ecclesiastics, their lives at any rate were exemplary, whereas the
contrary was the case with the free-thinking men of science; their
teaching was sometimes unassailable, but the lives they led could not be
taken seriously.
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