to reveal to us. Goncourt tells us the story of that Hokousaï who
signed "_An old man crazy to be conspicuous_." Let us think that
Marie was also the _young girl crazy to be conspicuous_.

But let us go back to an idyl little known of Marie's twelfth year.
The fact itself is not very extraordinary. The little girl is
training herself for motherhood by lavishing caresses on wretched
papier-mâché baby dolls. She is practising for her part of woman by
playing at being in love. Artless little affairs outlined in the
catechism, pervaded by the fragrance of incense. Very similar to
these appears to us the enthusiasm the little Slav felt for the Duc
de H----. Candid, affectionate little girl, she says deliciously: "I
love him, and that is what makes me suffer. Take away this grief,
and I shall be a thousand times more unhappy. The pain makes my
happiness. I live for it alone. All my thoughts are centred there.
The Duc de H---- is my all. I love him so much. That is a very
ancient and old-fashioned phrase, since people no longer love."

After such a passage of captivating vivacity, in which work and
pleasures inflame this ardent vitality, other days,--numerous, alas!
have the mere mention of a date followed by a dash. These are the
stations of the disease when the charming body was weakening like a
dying flower. And there were the alternations of hope, the
physicians consulted when at first she believed everything, to
doubt, later, all the remedies with which their pity beguiles
anxiety, at last the resigned almost certainty:

"And, nevertheless, I am going to die."

Should the shortness of her existence be regretted for Marie?