But to buy a doll for you--a thousand
thunders!--to disgrace you! Never in the world! Why, if I were even to
see you playing with a puppet rigged out like that, monsieur, my
sister's son, I would disown you for my nephew!"
On hearing these words, I felt my heart so wrung that nothing but
pride--a diabolic pride--kept me from crying.
My uncle, suddenly calming down, returned to his ideas about the
Bourbons; but I, still smarting from the blow of his indignation, felt
an unspeakable shame. My resolve was quickly made. I promised myself
never to disgrace myself--I firmly and for ever renounced that
red-cheeked doll.
I felt that day, for the first time, the austere sweetness of sacrifice.
Captain, though it be true that all your life you swore like a pagan,
smoked like a beadle, and drank like a bell-ringer, be your memory
nevertheless honoured--not merely because you were a brave soldier, but
also because you revealed to your little nephew in petticoats the
sentiment of heroism! Pride and laziness had made you almost
insupportable, O my Uncle Victor!--but a great heart used to beat under
those frogs upon your coat. You always used to wear, I now remember, a
rose in your button-hole. That rose which you allowed, as I now have
reason to believe, the shop-girls to pluck for you--that, large,
open-hearted flower, scattering its petals to all the winds, was the
symbol of your glorious youth.
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