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There was also Philomene Simonneau, the young Vendeenne, whose left leg was perforated by three horrible sores in the depths of which her carious bones were visible, and whose bones, whose flesh, and whose skin were all formed afresh.
M. PHILOMÈNE to MADAME DE MONTPARNASSE. I have the four corners of my Aunt's Flower Garden, etc., etc. MADAME DE MONTPARNASSE to M. DORINET. I have the four corners of my Aunt's Flower Garden, etc., etc. Monsieur Dorinet repeats the formula to Madame Desjardins; Madame Desjardins passes it on to me; I proclaim it at the top of my voice to Madame Marotte; Madame Marotte transfers it to Mdlle.
But she and I had struck up a friendship over a flesh-wound which I received in an affair of outposts on the Algueda, and thenceforward I taught myself to soften the edge of her white wine by the remembered virtues of her ointment, so that when Sergeant Jupille was cut off by a grapeshot in front of Salamanca, and his Philomène retired to take charge of his mother's wine shop in the Rue du Fouarre, she had enrolled my name high on the list of her prospective patrons.
Honoria, who had not yet succeeded in uttering a syllable of her part, took no pains to dissemble her annoyance; and was only pacified at last by a happy proposal on the part of Monsieur Philomène, who suggested that "this gifted demoiselle" should be entreated to favor the society with a soliloquy.
"And the more I look at him," said I, "the more doubtful I get." Madame Marotte, meanwhile, had introduced M. Lenoir to the two Conservatoire pupils and their mammas; Monsieur Dorinet had proposed some "petits jeux;" and Monsieur Philomène was helping him to re-arrange the chairs this time in a circle.
A Piedmontese pedlar, who carried the "Song of the Holy St. Philomène" to sell among the peasants, came in directly, and bargained for a sleep on some hay, for two sous. For a bed in the loft over the shop, we were charged five sous each, which, with seven sous for supper, made our expenses for the night about eleven cents!
Then he stood up beaming: "I hear them chirp, Philomène; I hear them chirp. They owe their lives to me, sure enough, and they'll not be the ones to regret it any more than I." He had in his bosom the heart of a child that had never grown old.
Yes, and did not Colonel de Rochas in turn hypnotize this shade of Jean-Claude Bourdon, so that he adventured farther back into time, through infancy and birth and the dark of the unborn, until he found again light and life when, as a wicked old woman, he had been Philomene Carteron?
So Mam'selle Rosalie wiped away her tears, and Madame Desjardins smoothed her ruffled feathers, and Monsieur Philomène warbled a plaintive little ditty in which "coeur" rhymed to "peur" and "amours" to "toujours" and "le sort" to "la mort" in quite the usual way; so giving great satisfaction to all present, but most, perhaps, to himself.
But Monsieur Philomène would hear of no such expiation. His soul, to use his own eloquent language, recoiled from it with horror! The accompaniment,
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