" (You can see it very plainly, for her features are haughty
and perfectly pure of line; it is only that her expression, when she
sits alone, is sinister.) "I lost my father when I was five years old.
About that time my mother married again, and did not trouble herself any
more about me, as she had children with her new husband. So I was left
to myself, and ran about the streets, and became absolutely
ungovernable, from vivacity, life, and mischief, for I was naturally a
very lively child. Then one day I met a mule, alone; the man had left
it; I climbed up, and seated myself upon it, and rode about, up and down
the street, until a dog came that frightened the mule and it kicked and
threw me over its head. There I lay, with a broken collar-bone, and some
of the bone stuck out through the skin. Then a doctor came and wanted to
bind it up for me, but I was ashamed for him to see my breast, and would
not let him. He said: 'Rubbish! I have seen plenty of girls.' So I was
bound up and for six weeks had to lie quite still. In the meantime a
priest, whom they all called Don Carlo--I do not know why they said Don
--came to see me, and when I was a little better and only could not move
my left arm, he said to me one day, would I go and weed in his garden,
and he would give me money for it.
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