My mother goes off to dress, then from two to four she can never be seen. At four she goes out for an hour’s walk; from six to seven she receives visitors, when she’s not dining in town, and finally the evening is taken up with amusements, the theater, balls, concerts, visits. Her life is so full that I don’t believe she has a quarter of an hour to herself. She must devote some considerable time to her toilette every morning, for she is divine at breakfast, which takes place between eleven and noon. I am beginning to understand the sounds I hear from her rooms. She takes an almost cold bath and a cup of cold coffee with cream, and then she dresses. Save in exceptional circumstances, she is never up before nine. In the summer she goes out for an early-morning ride. At two she receives a young man I have yet to catch sight of.

There you have our family life. We meet at breakfast and dinner, though for the latter I am often alone with my mother. Still more often, I suspect, I will be dining with Miss Griffith alone in my rooms, like my grandmother. My mother often dines in town. I am no longer surprised by the little interest my family takes in me. My dear, in Paris there is a certain heroism in loving the people around us, for we are rarely alone with ourselves. How quickly the absent are forgotten here! It’s true, of course, that I have yet to set foot outside and know nothing. I prefer to wait until I have lost a bit of my innocence, until my manner and dress are in harmony with the world of society, whose agitations fill me with wonder, though I hear its clamor only from afar. I have yet to venture any farther than the garden. In a few days they’ll be singing at the Théâtre des Italiens. My mother has a box there. I am half mad with impatience to hear Italian music and to see a French opera. Little by little, I am shedding the habits of the convent and adopting those of society. I write you in the evening until bedtime, now put back to ten o’clock, the hour when my mother goes out, if she’s not at one theater or another. There are twelve theaters in Paris. I am as ignorant as can be, and I read a good deal, but I read indiscriminately. One book leads me to the next. The cover of the book in my hands lists the titles of several more, but I have no one to guide me, and so many I come across bore me dreadfully.

What I have read of modern literature is centered on love, the subject that so occupied our minds, since our destiny is shaped wholly by men and for men, but those authors are so far below two little girls named the white doe and the darling, Renée and Louise! Ah, dear angel, what dull happenings, what peculiarities, and how palely that emotion is expressed! There are however two books that I have found strangely compelling: one is Corinne, the other Adolphe.[10] On that subject, I asked my father if I might meet Madame de Staël. My mother, my father, and Alphonse began to laugh. Alphonse said, “Where has this girl been?” My father answered, “Silly us, she’s been at the Carmelites.” “My daughter, Madame de Staël is dead,” the duchess gently informed me.

“How can a woman be deceived?” I asked Miss Griffith on finishing Adolphe.

“Why, when she’s in love,” Miss Griffith answered.

Tell me, Renée, will any man ever be able to deceive us?

Miss Griffith soon realized that I am only half innocent, that I’ve had a secret education, the one we gave each other with our endless cogitations and speculations. She saw that I am ignorant only of external matters. The poor creature opened her heart to me.