"Take care, sir, my husband will certainly appeal to the Minister."
"Come, you are not more reasonable than the others," declared Bourdoncle, losing patience. "We must search you."
Still she did not yield, but with superb assurance, declared: "Very good, search me. But I warn you, you are risking your house."
Jouve went to fetch two saleswomen from the corset department. When he returned, he informed Bourdoncle that the lady's daughter, left at liberty, had not quitted the doorway, and asked if she also should be detained, although he had not seen her take anything. The manager, however, who always did things in a fitting way, decided that she should not be brought in, in order not to cause her mother to blush before her. The two men retired into a neighbouring room, whilst the saleswomen searched the countess. Besides the twelve yards of Alençon point at a thousand francs the yard concealed in her sleeve, they found upon her a handkerchief, a fan, and a cravat, making a total of about fourteen thousand francs' worth of lace. She had been stealing like this for the last year, ravaged by a furious, irresistible passion for dress. These fits got worse, growing daily, sweeping away all the reasonings of prudence; and the enjoyment she felt in the indulgence of them was the more violent from the fact that she was risking before the eyes of a crowd her name, her pride, and her husband's high position. Now that the latter allowed her to empty his drawers, she stole although she had her pockets full of money, she stole for the mere pleasure of stealing, goaded on by desire, urged on by the species of kleptomania which her unsatisfied luxurious tastes had formerly developed in her at sight of the vast brutal temptations of the big shops.[1]
[1] The manager of one of the great London drapery houses was telling me, recently, that the same kind of thing is far less infrequent than might be imagined among certain English women of fashion. And he added that these affairs are as a rule hushed up, even as they are hushed up in Paris. Trans.
"It's a trap," cried she, when Bourdoncle and Jouve came in. "This lace was placed on me, I swear it before Heaven."
She was now shedding tears of rage, and fell on a chair, suffocating. Bourdoncle sent the saleswomen away and resumed, with his quiet air: "We are quite willing, madame, to hush up this painful affair for the sake of your family. But you must first sign a paper thus worded: 'I have stolen some lace from The Ladies' Paradise,' followed by particulars of the lace, and the date. However, I shall be happy to return you this document whenever you like to bring me a sum of two thousand francs for the poor."
She again rose and declared in a fresh outburst: "I'll never sign that, I'd rather die."
"You won't die, madame; but I warn you that I shall shortly send for the police."
Then followed a frightful scene. She insulted him, she stammered that it was cowardly for a man to torture a woman in that way. Her Juno-like beauty, her tall majestic person was distorted by vulgar rage. Then she tried to soften him and Jouve, entreating them in the name of their mothers, and speaking of dragging herself at their feet. And as they, however, remained quite unmoved, hardened by custom, she all at once sat down and began to write with a trembling hand. The pen sputtered; the words "I have stolen," madly, wildly written, went almost through the thin paper, whilst she repeated in a choking voice: "There, sir, there. I yield to force."