Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/210

132 not know what people do when they have spent their last penny."

"It is courage above all things that one should ask of God."

"After all, madam, I do not wish you to think me better than I am, and it is robbing you to profit by the charities which you do without knowing me. I am an unfortunate girl—but in this world one lives as he can. To have done, madam, I offered the taper because my mother said that when one offers a taper to Saint Roch one never fails to find a lover within the week. But I have lost my good looks, I look like a mummy. Nobody cares for me any more. Ah, well, there is nothing left but to die. Already it is half accomplished."

All that was said very rapidly, in a voice broken by sobs, and with an accent so frenzied that Madame de Piennes was more inspired with fright than with horror. Involuntarily she drew away from the bedside of the invalid. Perhaps she would have left the chamber if her humanity had not been stronger than her disgust for that lost creature, and prevented her from leaving her alone at a moment when she was a prey to the most violent despair. There was a moment of silence; then Madame de Piennes, with drooping eyelids, murmured faintly: