My grandpapa from Russia seemed to know everything and to be able to do anything. He would, for instance, talk to me for an hour about a tragedy of Voltaire, which he afterwards compared with a tragedy of his beloved Racine; or perhaps a book by some little known Russian author, whom he placed far above the work of many celebrated writers--German, French or English. Then he would suddenly tell me the life of a plant at our feet or the story of the stone on which he sat. Afterwards, we would go to the kitchen, and there he taught me how to prepare some kind of soup or sweet dish _à la Russe_. When this was over we would go to the music-room and there I had to sing or play to him an air by Mozart, Glück, Lulli, or Rameau. He used to say: "You will play the music of Beethoven and Wagner (he, like my father, had already recognised Wagner's genius) when you are older. One must have suffered and loved to understand these geniuses." He taught me to sculpture, to bind books, to solder....
My father joined us and said: "My dear Doriand, you are monopolising my daughter. You have had her to yourself the whole morning."
"How dare you complain," the other retorted; "you have her the whole of the year."
How delightfully they spoiled me, those two dear souls, and how coquettish they made me! I recall them sitting on an old rustic bench in the large avenue of chestnut-trees. I felt that they were talking about me, and I ran into the house to put on my most becoming dress, and then went out and walked up and down slowly, with a book in my hand, and not too far from them, and knowing all the while that their eyes were following me! There did not seem to be any harm in this, but one day, my mother catching me at my little game, scolded me and my father and his old friend much more.... As a rule, when my dear mother scolded them, my father went to the organ and improvised a war-march and M. Doriand, standing near him, turned imaginary pages. My mother could not help laughing and we guilty three did the same, of course.
I had two sisters, Juliette, the eldest--who, when I was a little girl, became the wife of M. Herr, an engineer then residing in Bayonne, where, later, I met M. Steinheil--and Mimi, younger than I by four years, who was my mother's favourite, just as I was my father's. I had also a brother, Julien, who enlisted in an infantry regiment at Belfort and became there the friend of M. Sheffer, who was to be my _fiancé_ of a few months.