That year my family fixed the day of their return to Paris rather earlier
than usual. On the morning of our departure I had had my hair curled, to
be ready to face the photographer, had had a new hat carefully set upon my
head, and had been buttoned into a velvet jacket; a little later my
mother, after searching everywhere for me, found me standing in tears on
that steep little hillside close to Tansonville, bidding a long farewell
to my hawthorns, clasping their sharp branches to my bosom, and (like a
princess in a tragedy, oppressed by the weight of all her senseless
jewellery) with no gratitude towards the officious hand which had, in
curling those ringlets, been at pains to collect all my hair upon my
forehead; trampling underfoot the curl-papers which I had torn from my
head, and my new hat with them. My mother was not at all moved by my
tears, but she could not suppress a cry at the sight of my battered
headgear and my ruined jacket. I did not, however, hear her. "Oh, my poor
little hawthorns," I was assuring them through my sobs, "it is not you
that want to make me unhappy, to force me to leave you.
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