Lazare. Prudhomme would
have said that this precocious little hussy was totally destitute of
morality. She had not the slightest idea what morality was. She thought
the world was full of honest people living like her mother, and her
mother's friends. She feared neither God nor devil, but she was afraid
of the police. She dreaded also certain mysterious and cruel persons,
whom she had heard spoken of, who dwell near the Palais de Justice, and
who experience a malicious pleasure in seeing pretty girls in trouble.
As she gave no promise of beauty, she was on the point of being placed
in a shop, when an old and respectable gentleman, who had known her
mamma some years previously, accorded her his protection. This
old gentleman, prudent and provident like all old gentlemen, was a
connoisseur, and knew that to reap one must sow. He resolved first of
all to give his protege just a varnish of education. He procured masters
for her, who in less than three years taught her to write, to play the
piano, and to dance. What he did not procure her, however, was a lover.
She therefore found one for herself, an artist who taught her nothing
very new, but who carried her off to offer her half of what he
possessed, that is to say nothing.
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