locked up for three days: that was followed by my being detained on the
first day we were allowed out. And in addition I would receive five
strokes with a ruler on my fingers. Ah! those ruler strokes of Mlle.
Caroline's! I reproached her about them when I met her again twenty-five
years later. She used to make us put all our fingers round the thumb and
hold our hands straight out to her, and then bang came her wide ebony
ruler. She used to give us a cruelly hard, sharp blow which made the
tears spurt to our eyes. I took a dislike to Mlle. Caroline. She was
beautiful, but with the kind of beauty I did not care for. She had a
very white complexion, and very black hair, which she wore in waved
_bandeaux_. When I saw her a long time afterwards, one of my relatives
brought her to my house and said, "I am sure you will not recognise this
lady, and yet you know her very well." I was leaning against the large
mantelpiece in the hall, and I saw this tall woman, still beautiful, but
rather provincial-looking, coming through the first drawing-room. As she
descended the three steps into the hall the light fell on her protruding
forehead, framed on each side with the hard, waved _bandeaux_.

"Mademoiselle Caroline!" I exclaimed, and with a furtive, childish
movement I hid my two hands behind my back. I never saw her again, for
the grudge I had owed her from my childhood must have been apparent
under my politeness as hostess.

As I said before, I was not unhappy at Madame Fressard's, and it seemed
quite natural to me that I should stay there until I was quite a
grown-up girl. My uncle, Felix Faure, who has entered the Carthusian
monastery, had stipulated that his wife, my mother's sister, should
often take me out. He had a very fine country place at, Neuilly, with a
stream running through the grounds, and I used to fish there for hours,
together with my two cousins, a boy and girl.