PART ONE

 

"Everything in my childhood and adolescence prepared me for the fact that peace and good fortune would have no place in my life–that I would be doomed to a maddening struggle, and would become, if you like, a scapegoat, bearing the burden of all the injustices and misfortunes that hurled my family to ruin."

 

Isabelle Eberhardt

Mes Journaliers,

January 18, 1900