"Happily, madame, for the honor of the human race, this remorse occurs oftener than is supposed; avenging conscience never completely sleeps, or rather, strange thing, sometimes one would say that the spirit watches while the body sleeps. It is an observation that I made only this night again in reference to my protegee. Very, often, when the prisoners are asleep, I make the rounds of the sleeping apartments. Your ladyship cannot imagine how much the physiognomies of these women differ in expression while they sleep. A great number of them, whom I had seen during the day careless, bold, brazen, impudent, seemed completely to have changed when sleep had deprived their features of all the audacity of wickedness; for vice, alas! has its pride. Oh, what sorrowful revelations on these countenances, then dejected, melancholy, and sad! What involuntary starts! What mournful sighs torn from them by a dream, doubtless impressed with an inexorable reality! I spoke to you just now, madame, of this girl called La Louve. About fifteen days ago she insulted me brutally before all the prisoners. I shrugged my shoulders; my indifference but exasperated her. Then she thought to wound me by uttering something disgraceful concerning my mother, whom she had often seen here on a visit to me. Ah, how horrid! I acknowledge, stupid as this attack was, she hurt me. La Louve saw it, and triumphed. That night I went to make an inspection in the sleeping apartment; I reached the bed of La Louve, who was to be put in the cell next morning; I was struck with the sweetness of her face, compared with the hard and insolent expression which was habitual to her; her features seemed supplicating, full of sadness and contrition; her lips were half-open, her breathing oppressed; finally, a thing which appeared to me incredible, for I thought it impossible, tears—tears fell from her eyes. I looked at her in silence for some moments, when I heard her pronounce these words, 'Pardon! pardon her, mother!' I listened more attentively, but all that I could hear was my name, Madame Armand, pronounced with a sigh."
"She repented, during her sleep, of having abused your mother?"
"I thought so, and it made me less severe."
"And the next day, did she express any regret for her past conduct?"
"None; she showed herself as wild as ever."
"But, madame, you must need great courage, much strength of mind, not to recoil before the unpleasantness of a task which brings such rare returns!"
"The consciousness of fulfilling a duty sustains and encourages me— besides, sometimes, one is recompensed by some happy discovery."
"No matter; women like you, madame, are seldom to be found."
"No, no; I assure you what I do others do, and with more success and intelligence than I. One of the inspectresses of the other quarter of Saint Lazaro, destined for those accused of other crimes, will interest you much more. She related to me the arrival, this morning, of a young girl, accused of infanticide. Never have I heard anything more touching. The father of the poor unfortunate has become insane from grief, on learning the shame of his child. It appears that nothing could be more frightful than the poverty of this family, who lived in a wretched garret in the Rue du Temple!"
"The Rue du Temple!" cried Madame d'Harville, astonished. "What is the name of the family?"