Sylvestre, it is late, and your mamma will scold you." Monsieur
Sylvestre in those days made very little of either scoldings or
whippings. But his nurse lifted him up like a feather, and Monsieur
Sylvestre yielded to force. In after years, with age, he degenerated,
and sometimes yielded to fear. But at that time he used to fear nothing.

I was unhappy. An unreasoning but irresistible shame prevented me from
telling my mother about the object of my love. Thence all my sufferings.
For many days that doll, incessantly present in fancy, danced before my
eyes, stared at me fixedly, opened her arms to me, assuming in my
imagination a sort of life which made her appear at once mysterious and
weird, and thereby all the more charming and desirable.

Finally, one day--a day I shall never forget--my nurse took me to see my
uncle, Captain Victor, who had invited me to breakfast. I admired my
uncle a great deal, as much because he had fired the last French
cartridge at Waterloo as because he used to make with his own hands, at
my mother's table, certain chapons-a-l'ail, which he afterwards put into
the chicory-salad. I thought that was very fine! My Uncle Victor also
inspired me with much respect by his frogged coat, and still more by his
way of turning the whole house upside down from the moment he came into
it. Even now I cannot tell just how he managed it, but I can affirm that
whenever my Uncle Victor found himself in any assembly of twenty
persons, it was impossible to see or to hear anybody but him. My
excellent father, I have reason to believe, never shared my admiration
for Uncle Victor, who used to sicken him with his pipe, gave him great
thumps on the back by way of friendliness, and accused him of lacking
energy. My mother, though always showing a sister's indulgence to the
captain, sometimes advised him to fondle the brandy bottle a little less
frequently. But I had no part either in these repugnances or these
reproaches, and Uncle Victor inspired me with the purest enthusiasm. It
was therefore with a feeling of pride that I entered into the little
lodging-house where he lived, in the Rue Guenegaud. The entire
breakfast, served on a small table close to the fireplace, consisted of
pork-meats and confectionery.

The Captain stuffed me with cakes and pure wine. He told me of
numberless injustices to which he had been a victim. He complained
particularly of the Bourbons; and as he neglected to tell me who the
Bourbons we