PRESIDENT. Go on, madam. But facts, if you please.
LUCIE. Yes. I begged my husband to take Annette and me back. He would not.
PRESIDENT. Kindly come to the defendant Thomas.
LUCIE [with constantly rising emotion] Annette reproached herself for having accepted what she called my sacrifice. She said that she was the cause of all my trouble. [Pause] One day I was fetched; I found her dead at this woman’s. [A fit of sobbing seizes her: her nerves break down completely. She cries] My little sister! my poor little sister!
PRESIDENT [Compassionately, to the usher] Take her away. Call the doctor. [Lucie, still crying out, is led away. Her emotion has communicated itself to everyone in court. The President continues to the defendants] Has no one else among you anything further to say in his defence?
TUPIN [excited] Oh, if we said everything we should be here till tomorrow!
MME. TUPIN [equally excited] Yes, till tomorrow, so we should!
TUPIN. And then we shouldn’t be done, I can tell you!
PRESIDENT. Then I will hear the Advocate-General.
SCHOOLMISTRESS. But you’re not going to condemn us? It isn’t possible. I haven’t said everything—