I had to swear that I would do it. She
gave me, for my daily food, hatred against the aristocrats; it was
the meat to my sauce, the sugar to my coffee, the butter to my
bread! I lived and throve upon it. Look at me, and see what such
fare has made of me! Look at me! I am not yet twenty-four years old,
and yet I have the appearance of an old woman, and I have the
feeling and the experience of an old woman! Nothing moves me now,
and the only thing that lives and burns in my heart is revenge.
Believe me, were I in your place I should know how to exasperate the
Austrian; I should succeed in drawing out her tears."
"Well, and how would you begin? Really, I should like to know how to
bring this incarnation of pride to weeping."
"Has not she children?" asked Madame Simon, with a horrible
calmness. "I would torture and provoke the children, and that would
soon make the heart of the woman humble and pliable. Oh, she may
count herself happy that I am not in your place, and that her
children are not under my tender hands. But if it ever happens that
I can lay my fingers upon the shoulders of the little wolves, I will
give them something that will make them cry out, and make the old
wolf howl with rage. I will show her as little favor then as she
showed when my poor mother and I were begging for my dear father! Go
up, go up and try at once.
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