felt frightened,
convinced as she was that people fought one another there? She could
not see it distinctly, but, to tell the truth, its aspects stirred
one; it was very ugly, and must not be looked at by little girls.

A host of indefinable ideas and suppositions, which brought her to the
verge of weeping, awoke trouble in Jeanne's ignorant, childish mind.
From the unknown world of Paris, with its smoke, its endless noises,
its powerful, surging life, an odor of wretchedness, filth, and crime
seemed to be wafted to her through the mild, humid atmosphere, and she
was forced to avert her head, as though she had been leaning over one
of those pestilential pits which breathe forth suffocation from
their unseen horrors. The Invalides, the Pantheon, the Tower of
Saint-Jacques--these she named and counted; but she knew nothing of
anything else, and she sat there, terrified and ashamed, with the
all-absorbing thought that her mother was among those wicked places,
at some spot which she was unable to identify in the depths yonder.

Suddenly Jeanne turned round. She could have sworn that somebody had
walked into the bedroom, that a light hand had even touched her
shoulder. But the room was empty, still in the same disorder as when
Helene had left. The dressing-gown, flung across the pillow, still lay
in the same mournful, weeping attitude. Then Jeanne, with pallid
cheeks, cast a glance around, and her heart nearly burst within her.
She was alone! she was alone! And, O Heaven, her mother, in forsaking
her, had pushed her with such force that she might have fallen to the
floor. The thought came back to her with anguish; she again seemed to
feel the pain of that outrage on her wrists and shoulders. Why had she
been struck? She had been good, and had nothing to reproach herself
with. She was usually spoken to with such gentleness that the
punishment she had received awoke feelings of indignation within her.
She was thrilled by a sensation of childish fear, as in the old times
when she was threatened with the approach of the wolf, and looked for
it and saw it not: it was lingering in some shady corner, with many
other things that were going to overwhelm her. However, she was full
of suspicion; her face paled and swelled with jealous fury. Of a
sudden, the thought that her mother must love those whom she had gone
to see far more than she loved her came upon her with such crushing
force that her little hands clutched her bosom. She kn