Grow strong! be well! I will show you how to ride a mare
as pretty and gentle as yourself. Nothing shall ever thwart or trouble
you. Tete-Dieu! all things bow to me as the reeds to the wind. I give
you unlimited power. I bow to you myself as the god of the family."
The father carried his son into the lordly chamber where the mother's
sad existence had been spent. Etienne turned away and leaned against
the window from which his mother was wont to make him signals
announcing the departure of his persecutor, who now, without his
knowing why, had become his slave, like those gigantic genii which the
power of a fairy places at the order of a young prince. That fairy was
Feudality. Beholding once more the melancholy room where his eyes were
accustomed to contemplate the ocean, tears came into those eyes;
recollections of his long misery, mingled with melodious memories of
the pleasures he had had in the only love that was granted to him,
maternal love, all rushed together upon his heart and developed there,
like a poem at once terrible and delicious.
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