Her plan was made. She took a situation as a servant in the _Hotel et
Cafe du Theatre_, where the actors put up. She could hardly read or
write: and she had read nothing, for she had nothing to read. She wanted
to learn, and applied herself to it with frantic energy. She used to
steal books from the guests' rooms, and read them at night by moonlight
or at dawn, so as not to use her candle. Thanks to the untidiness of the
actors, her larcenies passed unnoticed or else the owners put up with
cursing and swearing. She used to restore their books when she had read
them,--except one or two which had moved her too much for her to be able
to part with them;--but she did not return them intact. She used to tear
out the pages which had pleased her. When she took the books back, she
used carefully to slip them under the bed or the furniture, so as to
make the owners of them believe that they had never left the room. She
used to glue her ears to the door to listen to the actors going over
their parts. And when she was alone, sweeping the corridor, she would
mimic their intonations in a whisper and gesticulate. When she was
caught doing so she was laughed at and jeered at. She would say nothing,
and boil with rage.--That sort of education might have gone on for a
long time had she not on one occasion been imprudent enough to steal the
script of a part from the room of an actor. The actor stamped and swore.
No one had been to his room except the servant: he accused her. She
denied it boldly: he threatened to have her searched: she threw herself
at his feet and confessed everything, even to her other pilferings and
the pages she had torn out of the books: the whole boiling. He cursed
and swore frightfully: but he was not so angry as he seemed. He asked
why she had done it. When she told him that she wanted to become an
actress he roared with laughter. He questioned her, and she recited
whole pages which she had learned by heart: he was struck by it, and
said: