ow to stand and the boy put his feet in the right place.
Presently he changed one foot and down come the stick with a snap on the
boy's legs. "Oh! M. Massart that hurt" cried the boy. "I meant it
should," said he. "Do it right next time."
If, thought Camilla, that is the way, I'll remember it. Somehow it was
not so easy. Massart gave a direction once and then came the stick. They
must do it right once and for all. Before she knew it there was a slap
on her own limbs. It didn't hurt much because her skirts warded off the
blow. As for the boys they had to take it sharp and heavy.
Then that little finger on her right hand. It would spring up as she
moved the bow. Massart said very pleasantly that she must keep it down.
She put it down but presently it flew up again and then came a stinging
blow from the slender stick that was not so pleasant.
That poor little finger had a sorry time of it before it would lay down
properly. Many a time it ached with the blows of the switch, and once
she thought it was certainly broken. She was obliged to nurse it in a
cot for two days. At last it came just right and has never gone wrong
since.
Some days Massart was in a terrible passion and stormed up and down the
room, and the stick danced about the boys legs till the little Camilla
felt sore all over, out of pure sympathy. It made her very cautious and
careful and as a natural result she escaped much of the shower of blows
that the master offered so freely. One day a stupid boy persisted in
holding his violin wrong and suddenly it flew up to the ceiling in a
hundred fragments. Poor Camilla fairly cried with fright when the master
kicked it out of the pupil's hands and really had to take refuge in
sudden tears. She clung to her instrument with might and main after
that. He would not be able to kick it away in that style from her hands.
Up early in the morning, breakfast, then three hours practice at home
with her father, then to her lessons from two till four at the
Conservatory. Then home again to study till bed time. Such was her day.
Three times a week, at all sorts of hours, as happened to be convenient,
she went to Massart's house for the extra lessons he gave her as a
private pupil. He was a famous teacher and pupils gladly paid him twenty
francs an hour for instruction on the violin. Camilla had it all for
nothing. It was the only gift she ever did have. Nobody had ever given
her money. They gave her an education and that
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