of obtaining forage for my rocking-horse, I used to make sad havoc
among the plants my poor mother delighted to keep on her window-sill.
Manly amusements those, I should say! And, nevertheless, I was
consumed with longing for a doll. Characters like Hercules have
such weaknesses occasionally. Was the one I had fallen in love with
at all beautiful? No. I can see her now. She had a splotch of
vermilion on either cheek, short soft arms, horrible wooden hands,
and long sprawling legs. Her flowered petticoat was fastened at
the waist with two pins. Even now I cans see the balck heads of
those two pins. It was a decidedly vulgar doll--smelt of the
faubourg. I remember perfectly well that, child as I was then,
before I had put on my first pair of trousers, I was quite conscious
in my own way that this doll lacked grace and style--that she was
gross, that she was course. But I loved her in spite of that; I
loved her just for that; I loved her only; I wanted her. My soldiers
and my drums had become as nothing in my eyes, I ceased to stick
sprigs of heliotrope and veronica into the mouth of my rocking-horse.
That doll was all the world to me. I invented ruses worthy of a
savage to oblige Virginie, my nurse, to take me by the little shop
in the Rue de Seine. I would press my nose against the window until
my nurse had to take my arm and drag me away. "Monsieur 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,