strengthen my will. As for my father, whose affection for me was of
another kind, I doubt if he would have shewn so much courage, for as soon
as he had grasped the fact that I was unhappy he had said to my mother:
"Go and comfort him." Mamma stayed all night in my room, and it seemed
that she did not wish to mar by recrimination those hours, so different
from anything that I had had a right to expect; for when Francoise (who
guessed that something extraordinary must have happened when she saw Mamma
sitting by my side, holding my hand and letting me cry unchecked) said to
her: "But, Madame, what is little Master crying for?" she replied: "Why,
Francoise, he doesn't know himself: it is his nerves. Make up the big bed
for me quickly and then go off to your own." And thus for the first time
my unhappiness was regarded no longer as a fault for which I must be
punished, but as an involuntary evil which had been officially recognised
a nervous condition for which I was in no way responsible: I had the
consolation that I need no longer mingle apprehensive scruples with the
bitterness of my tears; I could weep henceforward without sin. I felt no
small degree of pride, either, in Franchise's presence at this return to
humane conditions which, not an hour after Mamma had refused to come up to
my room and had sent the snubbing message that I was to go to sleep,
raised me to the dignity of a grown-up person, brought me of a sudden to a
sort of puberty of sorrow, to emancipation from tears. I ought then to
have been happy; I was not. It struck me that my mother had just made a
first concession which must have been painful to her, that it was a first
step down from the ideal she had formed for me, and that for the first
time she, with all her courage, had to confess herself beaten. It struck
me that if I had just scored a victory it was over her; that I had
succeeded, as sickness or sorrow or age might have succeeded, in relaxing
her will, in altering her judgment; that this evening opened a new era,
must remain a black date in the calendar. And if I had dared now, I
should have said to Mamma: "No, I don't want you; you mustn't sleep here."