United States or Syria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She grew white, and then red, then she seemed to find her voice, and asked me if she could wait upstairs in Noemi's room till she came back. At first I said `No, but she would not take a refusal; she insisted upon waiting; and there she is, I could not get her to leave the place." Madame Jeannel stood opposite to me; I lifted my eyes, and met hers steadily.
And as for the ribbon, she wished you to take it for her sake, that it might be a remembrance of her in time to come." I fell on my knees beside the bed and wept aloud. "Hush, hush!" whispered Madame Jeannel, bending over me; "it is best as it is, she is gone to the angels of God." Science has ceased to believe in angels, but in the faith of good women they live still.
"It will blight the whole of her life," said I; "she is so innocent of evil, and she loves him so much." I took up my hat as I spoke, and followed Madame Jeannel downstairs and into the street. When we reached her house, I left her in her own little parlour upon the entresol, and with a resolute step but a heavy heart I went alone to confront the strange woman in Noemi's room.
We were already in November, the days were getting bleak and chill, I had to light my lamp early and close my windows against the damp evening air. One afternoon, just as it was beginning to grow dark, Madame Jeannel came to see me, looking very disturbed and anxious.
Madame Jeannel was deeply concerned, for she was a good woman, and could sympathise with others in sorrow, but nothing that she could say or do seemed to reach the senses of Noemi.
When I had satisfied myself of her suspicions, I said in a low voice, "You have done rightly to fetch me. There is great trouble in store for our poor child. I fear this woman may have a better right to Antoine than Noemi has." "I am sure of it," responded Madame Jeannel. "If you could but have seen how she looked! Thank the good God she has come in time to save our Noemi from any real harm!"
Her right hand rested on Bambin's head, in her left she held the piece of silver ribbon I had given her, the ribbon she had hoped to wear at her wedding. "They are for you," said Madame Jeannel softly. "She said you were fond of Bambin, and he of you, and that you must take care of him and keep him with you always.
And now run home, for your own sake, my child." "Goodbye! monsieur." She paused at the door and added shyly, "You will really come tomorrow morning?" "Yes, yes; before breakfast. Goodbye, Noemi." At about ten on the ensuing day I repaired to Noemi's lodging, and found Madame Jeannel, the landlady, on the look-out for me. "Noemi told me you were coming," she said; "I will go and fetch her.
Most authorities in most countries are of opinion that girls who eventually (usually between the ages of fifteen and twenty) become prostitutes have lost their virginity at an early age, and in the great majority of cases through men of their own class. "The girl of the people falls by the people," stated Reuss in France (La Prostitution, p. 41). "It is her like, workers like herself, who have the first fruits of her beauty and virginity. The man of the world who covers her with gold and jewels only has their leavings." Martineau, again (De la Prostitution Clandestine, 1885), showed that prostitutes are usually deflowered by men of their own class. And Jeannel, in Bordeaux, found reason for believing that it is not chiefly their masters who lead servants astray; they often go into service because they have been seduced in the country, while lazy, greedy, and unintelligent girls are sent from the country into the town to service. In Edinburgh, W. Tait (Magdalenism, 1842) found that soldiers more than any other class in the community are the seducers of women, the Highlanders being especially notorious in this respect. Soldiers have this reputation everywhere, and in Germany especially it is constantly found that the presence of the soldiery in a country district, as at the annual manoeuvres, is the cause of unchastity and illegitimate births; it is so also in Austria, where, long ago, Gross-Hoffinger stated that soldiers were responsible for at least a third of all illegitimate births, a share out of all proportion to their numbers. In Italy, Marro, investigating the occasion of the loss of virginity in twenty-two prostitutes, found that ten gave themselves more or less spontaneously to lovers or masters, ten yielded in the expectation of marriage, and two were outraged (La Pubert
Madame Jeannel sat at the foot of the little white-draped bed; Bambin lay beside his mistress; the only sound in the room was the crackling of the burning logs on the hearth. As I entered, Madame Jeannel turned her head and looked at me; her eyes were heavy with tears, and she spoke in tones that were hushed and tremulous with the awe which the presence of death inspires.
Word Of The Day