At sixteen, Berene was asked to sacrifice herself on the altar of
marriage to a man three times her age; one Jacques Letellier, who
offered generously to take the young girl as payment for a debt owed
by his convivial comrade, M. Dumont. Berene wept and begged
piteously to be spared this horrible sacrifice of her young life,
whereupon Pierre Dumont seized his razor and threatened suicide as
the other alternative from the dishonour of debt, and Berene in
terror yielded her word and herself the next day to the debasing
mockery of marriage with a depraved old gambler and roue.
Six months later Jacques Letellier died in a fit of apoplexy and
Berene was freed from her chains; but freed only to keep on in a life
of martyrdom as servant and slave to the caprices of her father,
until his death. When he was finally well buried under six feet of
earth, Berene found herself twenty years of age, alone in the world
with just one thousand dollars in money, the price brought by her
father's effects.
Without education or accomplishments, she was the possessor of youth,
health, charm, and a voice of wonderful beauty and power; a voice
which it was her dream to cultivate, and use as a means of support.
But how could she ever cultivate it? The thousand dollars in her
possession was, she knew, but a drop in the ocean of expense a
musical education would entail.
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