"
At this recollection a fresh attack of sobbing shook her, in fact almost
stifled her.
"No, no," she at last resumed, "I would not part with her dear little
body by leaving it in that abominable town. And I can't tell exactly how
it happened, but it must have been those poor people who took me with
them. We did a great deal of walking, oh! a great deal of walking; we saw
all those gentlemen of the pilgrimage and the railway. 'What can it
matter to you?' I repeated to them. 'Let me take her back to Paris in my
arms. I brought her here like that when she was alive, I may surely take
her back dead? Nobody will notice anything, people will think that she is
asleep.'"
"And all of them, all those officials, began shouting and driving me away
as though I were asking them to let me do something wicked. Then I ended
by telling them my mind. When people make so much fuss, and bring so many
agonising sick to a place like that, they surely ought to send the dead
ones home again, ought they not? And do you know how much money they
ended by asking of me at the station? Three hundred francs! Yes, it
appears it is the price! Three hundred francs, good Lord! of me, who came
here with thirty sous in my pocket and have only five left. Why, I don't
earn that amount of money by six months' sewing. They ought to have asked
me for my life; I would have given it so willingly. Three hundred francs!
three hundred francs for that poor little bird-like body, which it would
have consoled me so much to have brought away on my knees!"
Then she began stammering and complaining in a confused, husky voice:
"Ah, if you only knew how sensibly those poor people talked to me to
induce me to go back.
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