To all
questions asked her reply was, "_je ne sais pas_." It is a pity but
her friends could meet with a person qualified to cast out a devil.
I am richly off for companionship in these parts. Of late days, M.
and Mde. Heger rarely speak to me, and I really don't pretend to care
a fig for any body else in the establishment. You are not to suppose
by that expression that I am under the influence of _warm_ affection
for Mde. Heger. I am convinced she does not like me--why, I can't
tell, nor do I think she herself has any definite reason for the
aversion; but for one thing, she cannot comprehend why I do not make
intimate friends of Mesdames Blanche, Sophie, and Hausse. M. Heger
is wonderously influenced by Madame, and I should not wonder if he
disapproves very much of my unamiable want of sociability. He has
already given me a brief lecture on universal _bienveillance_, and,
perceiving that I don't improve in consequence, I fancy he has taken
to considering me as a person to be let alone--left to the error of
her ways; and consequently he has in a great measure withdrawn the
light of his countenance, and I get on from day to day in a
Robinson-Crusoe-like condition--very lonely. That does not signify.
In other respects I have nothing substantial to complain of, nor is
even this a cause for complaint.
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