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Updated: May 7, 2025
I kissed Mlle. de Brabender, and she returned my kiss with such indulgent kindness that I felt quite embarrassed by it. Ten days passed by, and I did none of M. Meydieu's exercises, except the te de de at the piano. My mother came and woke me every morning for this, and it drove me wild. My godfather made me learn Aricie, but I understood nothing of what he told me about the verses.
Among her guests were the Duc de Morny, Camille Doucet and the Minister of Fine Arts, M. de Walewski, Rossini, my mother, Mlle. de Brabender, and I. During the evening a great many other people came. My mother had dressed me very elegantly, and it was the first time I had worn a really low dress. Oh, how uncomfortable I was! Every one paid me great attention.
Mamma sighed, and held her wools up close to her eyes to match them. "You have to be rich, though, to enter a convent," grunted the Havre notary, "and you have not a sou." I leaned towards Mlle. de Brabender and whispered, "I have the money that papa left." The horrid man overheard. "Your father left some money to get you married," he said.
I stamped on the floor, flung my arms out right and left until they were tired, and rocked myself backwards and forwards, pealing with laughter. My mother, attracted by the noise I was making, half opened the door. Mlle. de Brabender explained to her very gravely that she was showing me M. Meydieu's method.
He then took his departure, and I gazed at every one in perfect anguish. The Conservatoire! What was it? What did it mean? I went up to my governess, Mlle. de Brabender. Her lips were firmly pressed together, and she looked shocked, just as she did sometimes when my godfather told some story that she did not approve at table.
My consent was necessary, and I felt so joyful and so proud about it that I was quite touched and almost ready to yield. I said to myself that it would be better to hold my own and let them ask me again. After dinner we all squeezed into a cab, mamma, my godfather, Mlle. de Brabender, and I. My godfather made me a present of some white gloves.
I could not fathom all this at that time, but I did not feel at ease with this man, whom I had seen from my childhood and who was almost like a father to me. I did not want to continue learning Aricie. In the first place, I could not talk about it with my governess, as she would not discuss the piece at all. I then learnt L'Ecole des Femmes, and Mlle. de Brabender explained Agnes to me.
I thought of my mother in distress, my godfather laughing in his bourgeois way, and my Aunt Faure triumphant, with her usual phrase, "That child is terrible!" I thought too of my beloved Brabender, with her hands clasped, her moustache drooping sadly, her small eyes full of tears, so touching in their mute supplication.
"At night, when going to bed, repeat twenty times: Didon dina, dit-on, du dos d'un dodu dindon. "And twenty times: Le plus petit papa, petit pipi, petit popo, petit pupu. Open the mouth square for the d and pout for the p." He gave this piece of work quite seriously to Mlle. de Brabender, who quite seriously wanted me to practise it. Ah, no.
Certainly she was different from other people in her appearance, for Mlle. de Brabender was wearing a salmon-coloured dress and an Indian shawl, drawn tightly across her shoulders and fastened with a very large cameo brooch. Her bonnet was trimmed with ruches, so close together that it looked like a nun's head-gear.
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