Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 461
husband beat her. She is dead. We have not been very happy.
She was a good girl, who did not go to the ball, and who was
very peaceable. I remember one Shrove-Tuesday when she
went to bed at eight o’clock. There, I am telling the truth;
you have only to ask. Ah, yes! how stupid I am! Paris is a
gulf. Who knows Father Champmathieu there? But M. Ba-
loup does, I tell you. Go see at M. Baloup’s; and after all, I
don’t know what is wanted of me.’
The man ceased speaking, and remained standing. He
had said these things in a loud, rapid, hoarse voice, with a
sort of irritated and savage ingenuousness. Once he paused
to salute some one in the crowd. The sort of affirmations
which he seemed to fling out before him at random came
like hiccoughs, and to each he added the gesture of a wood-
cutter who is splitting wood. When he had finished, the
audience burst into a laugh. He stared at the public, and,
perceiving that they were laughing, and not understanding
why, he began to laugh himself.
It was inauspicious.
The President, an attentive and benevolent man, raised
his voice.
He reminded ‘the gentlemen of the jury’ that ‘the sieur
Baloup, formerly a master-wheelwright, with whom the ac-
cused stated that he had served, had been summoned in
vain. He had become bankrupt, and was not to be found.’
Then turning to the accused, he enjoined him to listen to
what he was about to say, and added: ‘You are in a position
where reflection is necessary. The gravest presumptions rest
upon you, and may induce vital results. Prisoner, in your