French fiction -- 19th century; Sand, George, 1804-1876
The frequent disputes that arose resulted at length in a separation. The
mother was, after much persuasion, brought to the belief that her
daughter's future would be best assured by her child's remaining at
Nohant in the care of her grandmother; while she retired to Paris,
supported by the slender income from her late husband's estate. It was
arranged that Aurore should accompany her grandmother to Paris, where
she had a house for the winter, when the child could spend whole days in
the company of her beloved mother, while, during the summer, the latter
would come to Nohant. The grandmother, finding that the child's
affection for her mother showed no diminution, but rather the reverse,
and that her own share in her granddaughter's affection was rather that
inspired by respect and veneration, became more jealous than ever, and
sought to make the separation a real one. Hence, after a few years, the
visits to Paris ceased.
During all this time, Aurore had been reading promiscuously, but there
had been no definite method in her education, and her religious
tendencies were left almost free to her own impulses. She had conversed
with Nature; she despised conventionality; she had given free rein to
her fancy; she had defined little. Her heart was not satisfied, and her
mind was reaching out to an ideal.
Aurore still continued, for a long time, to hope that her mother and
grandmother would be brought together again and her happiness
consummated; but this hope was cruelly shattered. One day, she was
startled by some disclosures her grandmother made respecting the past
life of Aurore's mother, and which, in the narrator's opinion, rendered
it of the first importance that the mother and the daughter should live
apart. The moment was badly chosen, in a fit of anger and jealousy, and
the loving girl resented her guardian's imprudence most bitterly, while
suffering intensely. Her affection for her grandmother was thereby
lessened, while her despised mother became dearer to her. She resolved
to abandon all those material advantages that were promised by remaining
with her grandmother, to neglect instruction, and to renounce
accomplishments. She rebelled against the lessons of Deschartres, and,
indeed, became a thorough mutineer. This was the situation when Aurore
approached her fourteenth year; her grandmother, in view of the
circumstances, decided to send her to a convent to complete an education
befitting her social position. The Couvent des Anglaises was selected,
as being the best institution for girls of aristocratic families.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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