It is the first time in my life that I
have really dreaded the vacation. Alas! I can hardly write, I have
such a dreary weight at my heart; and I do so wish to go home. Is not
this childish? Pardon me, for I cannot help it. However, though I am
not strong enough to bear up cheerfully, I can still bear up; and I
will continue to stay (D. V.) some months longer, till I have acquired
German; and then I hope to see all your faces again. Would that the
vacation were well over! it will pass so slowly. Do have the
Christian charity to write me a long, long letter; fill it with the
minutest details; nothing will be uninteresting. Do not think it is
because people are unkind to me that I wish to leave Belgium; nothing
of the sort. Everybody is abundantly civil, but home-sickness keeps
creeping over me. I cannot shake it off. Believe me, very merrily,
vivaciously, gaily, yours,
"C.B."
The _grandes vacances_ began soon after the date of this letter, when she
was left in the great deserted pensionnat, with only one teacher for a
companion. This teacher, a Frenchwoman, had always been uncongenial to
her; but, left to each other's sole companionship, Charlotte soon
discovered that her associate was more profligate, more steeped in a kind
of cold, systematic sensuality, than she had before imagined it possible
for a human being to be; and her whole nature revolted from this woman's
society.
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