Volume IV Part 42 (2/2)
”Who told it to you?”
She laid her hands on his shoulders, and looking at him out of the depths of her eyes:
”You swear not to blab?”
”I swear that I will not”
”I am his sister!”
He uttered that name in spite of himself:
”Francoise?”
She contemplated him onceof terror, a sense of profound horror, she faltered in a very low tone, al into his mouth:
”Oh! oh! it is you, Celestin”
They no longer stirred, their eyes riveted in one another
Around thelasses, by fists, by heels keeping tiled with the roar of their songs
He felt her leaning on hihtened, his sister Then, in a whisper, lest anyone ht hear him, so hushed that she could scarcely catch his words:
”What a misfortune! I have made a nice piece of work of it!”
The next moment, her eyes filled with tears, and she faltered:
”Is that my fault?”
But, all of a sudden, he said:
”So then, they are dead?”
”They are dead”
”The father, the mother, and the brother?”
”The three in onebut my clothes, for I was in debt to the apothecary and the doctor and for the funeral of the three, and had to pay what I oith the furniture”
”After that I went as a servant to the house of Mait'e Cacheux--you know him well--the cripple I was just fifteen at the time, for you went ahen I was not quite fourteen I tripped with hi Then I went as a nursery-ht me to Havre, where he took a roo to seea et employment, I went to a house, like many others I, too, have seen different places--ah! and dirty places! Rouen, Evreux, Lille, Bordeaux, Perpignan, Nice, and then Marseilles, where I am now!”
The tears started from her eyes, flowed over her nose, wet her cheeks, and trickled into her ht you were dead, too?--my poor Celestin”