It was
not the woman novelist who was coming to see me, but Marie Claire herself,
shepherdess, farm-servant, and sempstress; it was a mysterious creature
who had known how to excite enthusiasm in a whole regiment of literary
young men.... And literary young men as a rule are extremely harsh, even
offensive, in their attitude towards women writers. I stood at the top of
the toy stairs of the _pavillon_ which I was then occupying in Paris, and
Madame Marguerite Audoux came up the stairs towards me, preceded by one of
her young sponsors, and followed by another. A rather short, plump little
lady, very simply dressed, and with the simplest possible manner--just
such a comfortable human being as in my part of the world is called a
"body"! She had, however, eyes of a softness and depth such as are not
seen in my part of the world. With that, a very quiet, timid, and sweet
voice. She was a sempstress; she looked like a sempstress; and she was
well content to look like a sempstress. Nobody would have guessed in ten
thousand guesses that here was the author of the European book of the
year. But when she talked the resemblance to the sempstress soon vanished.
Sempstresses--of whom I have also known many--do not talk as she talked.
Not that she said much! Not that she began to talk at once! Far from it.
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