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If any one will give me back my daughter, I will be his servant, the servant of his dog, and he shall eat my heart if he will. She met M. le Cure of Saint-Remy, and said to him: 'Monsieur, I will till the earth with my finger-nails, but give me back my child! It was heartrending, Oudarde; and IL saw a very hard man, Master Ponce Lacabre, the procurator, weep. Ah! poor mother!
In the evening she returned home. During her absence, a neighbor had seen two gypsies ascend up to it with a bundle in their arms, then descend again, after closing the door. After their departure, something like the cries of a child were heard in Paquette's room. The mother, burst into shrieks of laughter, ascended the stairs as though on wings, and entered. A frightful thing to tell, Oudarde!
"Do not let us trouble her," said Oudarde, in a low voice, "she is in her ecstasy; she is praying." Meanwhile, Mahiette was gazing with ever-increasing anxiety at that wan, withered, dishevelled head, and her eyes filled with tears. "This is very singular," she murmured.
Such was the creature who had received, from her habitation, the name of the "recluse"; and, from her garment, the name of "the sacked nun." The three women, for Gervaise had rejoined Mahiette and Oudarde, gazed through the window. Their heads intercepted the feeble light in the cell, without the wretched being whom they thus deprived of it seeming to pay any attention to them.
"I ask no better," said Oudarde with a sigh, "but I am waiting until it shall suit the good pleasure of M. Andry Musnier." "However, Paquette's child had more that was pretty about it besides its feet. I saw her when she was only four months old; she was a love! She had eyes larger than her mouth, and the most charming black hair, which already curled.
Gervaise looked after Oudarde, and then the three women, gazing upon the unhappy mother, began to weep. But neither their looks nor their tears disturbed the recluse. Her hands remained clasped; her lips mute; her eyes fixed; and that little shoe, thus gazed at, broke the heart of any one who knew her history.
Oudarde, in her turn, in a sweeter, more caressing voice, "Sister!" said she, "Sister Sainte-Gudule!" The same silence; the same immobility. "A singular woman!" exclaimed Gervaise, "and one not to be moved by a catapult!" "Perchance she is deaf," said Oudarde. "Perhaps she is blind," added Gervaise. "Dead, perchance," returned Mahiette.
But, in that case, she must have gone out through the Porte de Vesle, and all this does not agree. Or, to speak more truly, I believe that she actually did depart by the Porte de Vesle, but departed from this world." "I do not understand you," said Gervaise. "La Vesle," replied Mahiette, with a melancholy smile, "is the river." "Poor Chantefleurie!" said Oudarde, with a shiver, "drowned!"
This question, highly imprudent at the moment when Eustache put it, aroused Mahiette's attention. "By the way," she exclaimed, "we are forgetting the recluse! Show me the Rat-Hole, that I may carry her her cake." "Immediately," said Oudarde, "'tis a charity." But this did not suit Eustache.
"It was with monsieur the cardinal, at the Petit Bourbon that they supped." "Not at all. At the Hotel-de-Ville. "Yes, indeed. At the Petit Bourbon!" "It was at the Hotel-de-Ville," retorted Oudarde sharply, "and Dr. Scourable addressed them a harangue in Latin, which pleased them greatly. My husband, who is sworn bookseller told me."
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