felt as though new life had been given me.

"Mlle. Armande had hair of tawny gold; there was a delicate fine down on
her cheek, with a silver gleam upon it which I loved to catch, putting
myself so that I could see the outlines of her face lit up by the
daylight, and feel the fascination of those dreamy emerald eyes, which
sent a flash of fire through me whenever they fell upon my face. I used
to pretend to roll on the grass before her in our games, only to try
to reach her little feet, and admire them on a closer view. The soft
whiteness of her skin, her delicate features, the clearly cut lines of
her forehead, the grace of her slender figure, took me with a sense of
surprise, while as yet I did not know that her shape was graceful,
nor her brows beautiful, nor the outline of her face a perfect oval. I
admired as children pray at that age, without too clearly understanding
why they pray. When my piercing gaze attracted her notice, when she
asked me (in that musical voice of hers, with more volume in it, as it
seemed to me, than all other voices), 'What are you doing little one?
Why do you look at me?'--I used to come nearer and wriggle and bite my
finger-nails, and redden and say, 'I do not know.' And if she chanced
to stroke my hair with her white hand, and ask me how old I was, I would
run away and call from a distance, 'Eleven!'

"Every princess and fairy of my visions, as I read the Arabian Nights,
looked and walked like Mlle. d'Esgrignon; and afterwards, when my
drawing-master gave me heads from the antique to copy, I noticed that
their hair was braided like Mlle. d'Esgrignon's. Still later, when the
foolish fancies had vanished one by one, Mlle. Armande remained vaguely
in my memory as a type; that Mlle. Armande for whom men made way
respectfully, following the tall brown-robed figure with their eyes
along the Parade and out of sight. Her exquisitely graceful form, the
rounded curves sometimes revealed by a chance gust of wind, and always
visible to my eyes in spite of the ample folds of stuff, revisited
my young man's dreams. Later yet, when I came to think seriously over
certain mysteries of human thought, it seemed to me that the feeling
of reverence was first inspired in me by something expressed in Mlle.
d'Esgrignon's face and bearing. The wonderful calm of her face, the
suppressed passion in it, the dignity of her movements, the saintly life
of duties fulfilled,--all this touched and awed me. Children are