Memory is so strange ...

When I was young, I watched a Mandarin-dubbed Japanese anime series whose title I could not recall, but I retained vivid memories of the gist, especially the beginning.

It was set in the late 19th century about a girl who recently lost her father.  The family was apparently en route overland across Europe to the father's hometown.  Her mother was Indian, and they travelled in a caravan.  For livelihood, they had a camera which was a rare instrument at the time, taking and selling photos of people wherever they travel.

Tragically, her mother died along the way too, and the girl made her own way through many hardship to finally reach her grandfather's hometown.  Her grandfather, the Baron, was owner of the main business in town, a cotton factory.

As her father was long estranged from her grandfather before her birth, the girl followed her late mother's advice and avoided directly approaching her grandfather, and instead became a worker in the factory.  As conditions in the workers quarters were appalling, she made a home for herself in an unused cabin.

I never got to watch every episode though, especially the last few.

But it was buried deeply in my memory and surfaced just yesterday.

But memory is indeed strange.  I could have sworn the factory was supposed to be located in Russia.  I googled unsuccessfully for the Anime title with the few key words, but only got the right hit after removing Russia from the key word.

The title of the anime is ペリーヌ物語, Perīnu Monogatari, (The Story of Perrine).  In Mandarin, it was 《佩琳物語》，又譯《小英的故事》.

It was based on the novel En Famille by Hector Malot (1893).  The town where the factory was located was "Maraucourt" (I got it from Gutenberg project http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27690/27690-h/27690-h.htm), which I can't seem to find. It probably refers to Malancourt in Meuse, based on the name and the map produced by a fan below of the route taken by Perrine, which was the name of the girl.

Well, after nearly three decades, I finally got to watch the last few episodes and read the ending of the original novel (translated to English).