Page:My Double Life — Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt.djvu/24

8 face flushed as red as a cockscomb. She asked me several questions, but I refused to reply. They all gathered round me.

"Speak, child Come, Sarah, be a good girl Oh, the naughty little child!"

It was all in vain. I remained perfectly mute. The customary round was then made, to the bed-rooms, the dining-hall, the class-rooms, and the usual exaggerated compliments were paid.

"How beautifully it is all kept! How spotlessly clean everything is!" and a hundred stupidities of this kind about the comfort of these prisons for children. My mother went aside with Madame Fressard, and I clung to her knees so that she could not walk. "This is the doctor's prescription," she said, and then followed a long list of things that were to be done for me.

Madame Fressard smiled rather ironically. "You know, Madame," she said to my mother, "we shall not be able to curl her hair like that."

"And you certainly will not be able to uncurl it," replied my mother, stroking my head with her gloved hands. "It's a regular wig, and they must never attempt to comb it until it has been well brushed. They could not possibly get the knots out otherwise, and it would hurt her too much. What do you give the children at four o'clock?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Oh, a slice of bread and just what the parents leave for them."

"There are twelve pots of different kinds of jam," said my mother, "but she must have jam one day, and chocolate another, as she has not a good appetite, and requires change of food. I have brought six pounds of chocolate." Madame Fressard smiled in a good-natured but rather ironical way. She picked up a packet of the chocolate and looked at the name of the maker.

"Ah! from Marquis's! What a spoiled little girl it is!" She patted my cheek with her white fingers, and then as her eyes fell on a large jar she looked surprised. "That's cold cream, said my mother. "I make it myself, and I should like my little girl's face and hands to be rubbed with it every night when she goes to bed."

"But" began Madame Fressard.

"Oh, I'll pay double laundry expenses for the sheets," interrupted my mother impatiently. (Ah, my poor mother!