companions; and grown-up people would scarcely kiss her, for they
thought that they would soil their lips if they touched her forehead,
and she became a sort of monster, a phenomenon to all the town. People
said to each other in a whisper: 'You know, little Fontanelle,' and
everybody turned away in the streets when she passed. Her parents could
not even get a nurse to take her out for a walk, as the other servants
held aloof from her, as if contact with her would poison everybody who
came near her.

"It was pitiable to see the poor child go and play every afternoon. She
remained quite by herself, standing by her maid and looking at the other
children amusing themselves. Sometimes, yielding to an irresistible
desire to mix with the other children, she advanced timidly, with
nervous gestures, and mingled with a group, with furtive steps, as if
conscious of her own disgrace. And immediately the mothers, aunts
and nurses would come running from every seat and take the children
entrusted to their care by the hand and drag them brutally away.

"Little Fontanelle remained isolated, wretched, without understanding
what it meant, and then she began to cry, nearly heartbroken with grief,
and then she used to run and hide her head in her nurse's lap, sobbing.

"As she grew up, it was worse still. They kept the girls from her, as
if she were stricken with the plague. Remember that she had nothing
to learn, nothing; that she no longer had the right to the symbolical
wreath of orange-flowers; that almost before she could read she had
penetrated that redoubtable mystery which mothers scarcely allow their
daughters to guess at, trembling as they enlighten them on the night of
their marriage.

"When she went through the streets, always accompanied by her governess,
as if, her parents feared some fresh, terrible adventure, with her eyes
cast down under the load of that mysterious disgrace which she felt
was always weighing upon her, the other girls, who were not nearly so
innocent as people thought, whispered and giggled as they looked at her
knowingly, and immediately turned their heads absently, if she happened
to look at them. People scarcely greeted her; only a few men bowed
to her, and the mothers pretended not to see her, while some young
blackguards called her Madame Baptiste, after the name of the footman
who had attacked her.

"Nobody knew the secret torture of her mind, for she hardly ever spoke,
and never laughed, and her