Restless and proud... Iam obliged to correct this poor little baby who gets into frightful tantrums; when things don’t go just right and according to her way of thinking (Zélie writes concerning Thérèse), she rolls on the floor in desperation like one without any hope. There are times when it gets too much for her and she literally chokes.” ... You can see, dear Mother, how far I was from being a faultless little child! They weren’t even able to say about me: “She’s good when she’s asleep” because at night I was more restless than during the day.... There was another fault I had when wide awake, which Mama doesn’t mention in her letters, and this was an excessive self-love.... One day, Mama said: “Little Thérèse, if you kiss the ground I’ll give you a sou.” A sou was a fortune at the time...and still my pride revolted at the thought of “kissing the ground”; so standing up straight, I said to Mama: “Oh! no, little Mother, I would prefer not to have the sou!” At the beginning of this excerpt, Thérèse quotes a letter from her mother Zélie to her sister Pauline, December 5, 1875. “ Darling Thérèse Manuscript A 19
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