"Silence!
You are a girl without shame, without religion. God will punish you. Go, if you will; but we keep your trunk."
I planted myself squarely before her, in an attitude of defiance, and, looking her full in the face, I said:
"Well, I should like to see you try it. Just try to keep my trunk, and you will have a visit from the commissary of police in short order.
And, if religion consists in patching the dirty pantaloons of your chaplains, in stealing bread from poor girls, in speculating on the horrors that go on every night in the dormitory...."
The good sister was fairly white.
She tried to cover my voice with her own. "Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle!"
"Oh! don't pretend ignorance of the dirty things that go on every night in the dormitory!
Do you dare to tell me, in my face, your eyes looking into mine, that you are ignorant of them?
You encourage them because they are profitable to you,—yes, because they are profitable to you."
And trembling, panting, with dry throat, I completed my accusation.
"If religion is all that; if it is religious to keep a prison and a brothel,—well, then, I have enough of religion. My trunk, do you hear?
I wish my trunk. You will give me my trunk at once."
Sister Boniface was frightened.
"I do not wish to discuss with a lost creature," said she, in a voice of dignity.
"All right; you shall go."
"With my trunk?"
"With your trunk."
"Very well; but it takes tall talk to get one's rights here. It is worse than at the custom-house."
I went, in fact, that very evening.
Clecle, who was very nice, and who had saved something, lent me twenty francs.
I went to engage a room in a lodging-house in the Rue de la Sourdiere, and I bought a seat among the gallery-gods at the Porte-Saint-Martin.
The play was "The Two Orphans."
How true it is! Almost my own story.
I passed there a delightful evening, weeping, weeping, weeping. _____
XIV
November 18.
Rose is dead.
Decidedly, misfortune hangs over the captain's house.
Poor captain!
His ferret dead ... Bourbaki dead ... and now it is Rose's turn!
After a sickness of some days, she was carried off day before yesterday, in the evening, by a sudden attack of congestion of the lungs.
She was buried this morning. From the windows of the linen-room I saw the procession pass in the road. The heavy coffin, borne by six men, was covered with crowns and with bunches of white flowers, like that of a young virgin.
A considerable crowd, in long, dark, babbling files,—all Mesnil-Roy—followed Captain Mauger, who, wearing a tightly-fitting black frock-coat, and holding himself very stiffly, led the mourners, in thoroughly military fashion.
And the church bells, tolling in the distance, responded to the sound of the rattle waved by the beadle.
Madame had warned me that I was not to go to the funeral.
However, I had no desire to go.
I did not like this fat and wicked woman; her death leaves me very calm and indifferent.
Yet perhaps I shall miss Rose; perhaps I shall miss my occasional conversations with her in the road. But what a source of gossip this event must be at the grocer's!
I was curious to know what impression this sudden death had made upon the captain.
And, as my masters were visiting, I took a walk in the afternoon along the hedge.
The captain's garden is sad and deserted. A spade stuck in the ground indicates abandoned work.
"The captain will not come into the garden," said I to myself; "he is undoubtedly weeping in his chamber, among the souvenirs." And suddenly I perceive him.
He has taken off his fine frock-coat, and put on his working-clothes again, and, with his old foraging-cap on his head, he is engaged in manuring his lawns. I even hear him humming a march in a low voice.
He leaves his wheelbarrow, and comes toward me, carrying his fork on his shoulder.
"I am glad to see you, Mademoiselle Celestine."
I should like to offer him consolation or pity. I search for words, for phrases. But how can one find a touching word in presence of such a droll face?
I content myself with repeating:
"A great misfortune, captain, a great misfortune for you!
Poor Rose!"