Mag there that you want! Well, I must compliment you, my young
fellow! If you grow up with such tastes as that, you will never
have any pleasure in life; and your comrades will call you a precious
ninny. If you asked me for a sword or a gun, my boy, I would buy
them for you with the last silver crown of my pension. But to buy
a doll for you--by all that's holy!--to disgrace you! Never in the
world! Why, if I were ever to see you playing with a puppet rigged
out like that, Monsieur, my sister's son, I would disown you for my
nephew!"

On hearing these words, I felt my heart so wrung that nothing but
pride--a diabolical pride--kept me from crying.

My uncle, suddenly calming down, returned to his ideas about the
Bourbons; but I, still smarting under the weight of his indignation,
felt an unspeakable shame. My resolve was quickly made. I promised
myself never to disgrace myself--I firmly and for ever renounced
that red-cheeked doll.

I felt that day, for the first time, the austere sweetness of
sacrifice.

Captain, though it be true that all your life you swore like a pagan,
smoked like a beadle, and drank like a bell-ringer, be your memory
nevertheless honoured--not merely because you were a brave soldier,
but also because you revealed to your little nephew in petticoats
the sentiment of heroism! Pride and laziness had made you almost
insupportable, Uncle Victor!--but a great heart used to beat under
those frogs upon your coat. You always used to wear, I now remember,
a rose in your button-hole. That rose which you offered so readily