innocent pranks of childhood; she was a child up to the age of seventeen,
but a boisterous, gay, restless, daring, mischievous child; she turned the
house upside down, and in the same way she would have been capable of
turning the world upside down; she had neither fears nor duties; she
played like a crazy thing and slept like a fool. For her mother had died
before Berta was old enough to know her; and although her mother's
portrait hung at the head of her bed, this image, at once sweet and
serious, was not sufficient to restrain the thoughtless impetuosity of the
girl. She was, besides, an only daughter, and her father, of whom we shall
give some account later, adored her. In addition to all this, her nurse,
who acted as housekeeper in the house, was at the same time the accomplice
and the apologist of her pranks, for the truth is she loved her like the
apple of her eye.

Less than this might have sufficed to turn an angel into an imp, and
indeed much less would have sufficed in Berta's case, for the natural
vivacity of her disposition inclined her to all kinds of pranks.
Opposition irritated her to such a degree as to set her crying. But what
tears! Suddenly, in the midst of her sobs, she would burst out laughing,
for her soul was all gayety, spontaneous, contagious gayety, the gayety of
the birds when day is breaking.

But this gayety could not last for ever; and, willing or unwilling, the
moment had to come some time when Berta would quiet down; for it was not
natural that she should remain all her life a madcap; and this moment at
last arrived; and all at once the girl's boisterous gayety began to calm
down, to cloud over, like a storm that is gathering, like a sky that is
darkening.

The nurse is the first to observe this change in Berta, and although the