“Yes, and the next evening you came to see me in my box and I saw you looking with the greatest interest at....”
“Poor flowers!—I did not think to see them again, or that they could speak to me as they do now, reminding me of all the feelings and dreams of my life. Do you know they are not dried up as I should have expected them to be after such a length of time?”
“My kisses have embalmed them and kept them fresh—kisses that I have given them so often!—But we must not delay. Give me all that.”
She replaced the objects in their little nook, with as reverent a touch as though they had been the most precious relics.
“Stay there in your melancholy little sleep, poor little treasures,” she said. Then she went on: “Now that you have seen the Ark of Sorrows I will show you the Chamber of Horrors!”
She opened a concealed drawer and took out a packet of papers tied together with red tape, like lawyers’ letters. Leon took it, understanding what it must contain, and they sat down to examine it.
“Here,” said Pepa with a shudder, at the sight of this record of disgrace, “here is the evidence of the martyrdom I have suffered as the wife of that reprobate: vile secrets that he confided to me under pressure of circumstances, when he wanted money. Every page is the record of some act of villainy that I concealed with the greatest care; the evidence of crimes that I succeeded in frustrating, or which remained hidden among the rubbish of some government office. Look at them, and you will see that I have ample means of proving that my husband is disqualified not merely for exercising paternal rights, but even for holding a place in anything like decent society.”
Leon looked through the packet with considerable curiosity, glancing over some things, and reading others with care. There were letters to and from well-known firms, private contracts, memoranda, accounts, papers with government seals, pages which had evidently been extracted from important documents, and a judicial decision which had obviously been signed under a false impression or in a moment of surprise.—When he had examined them all, he returned the packet to Pepa.
“Burn it,” he said.
“What?” she exclaimed, holding out her hand, but not taking it in her astonishment. “Shall I find them of no use?”