others, and her continual subordination of herself and of her own
troubles, appeared on her face blended in a smile which, unlike those seen
on the majority of human faces, had no trace in it of irony, save for
herself, while for all of us kisses seemed to spring from her eyes, which
could not look upon those she loved without yearning to bestow upon them
passionate caresses. The torments inflicted on her by my great-aunt, the
sight of my grandmother's vain entreaties, of her in her weakness
conquered before she began, but still making the futile endeavour to wean
my grandfather from his liqueur-glass--all these were things of the sort
to which, in later years, one can grow so well accustomed as to smile at
them, to take the tormentor's side with a. happy determination which
deludes one into the belief that it is not, really, tormenting; but in
those days they filled me with such horror that I longed to strike my
great-aunt. And yet, as soon as I heard her "Bathilde! Come in and stop
your husband from drinking brandy!" in my cowardice I became at once a
man, and did what all we grown men do when face to face with suffering and
injustice; I preferred not to see them; I ran up to the top of the house
to cry by myself in a little room beside the schoolroom and beneath the
roof, which smelt of orris-root, and was scented also by a wild
currant-bush which had climbed up between the stones of the outer wall and
thrust a flowering branch in through the half-opened window. Intended for
a more special and a baser use, this room, from which, in the daytime, I
could see as far as the keep of Roussainville-le-Pin, was for a long time
my place of refuge, doubtless because it was the only room whose door I
was allowed to lock, whenever my occupation was such as required an
inviolable solitude; reading or dreaming, secret tears or paroxysms of
desire. Alas! I little knew that my own lack of will-power, my delicate
health, and the consequent uncertainty as to my future weighed far more
heavily on my grandmother's mind than any little breach of the rules by
her husband, during those endless perambulations, afternoon and evening,