"You say it is impossible for you to conquer your low spirits, but there are other things you choose to style impossibilities I have begged and prayed of you to do, because I very well know you could, if you chose."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean your obstinate avoidance of all the other prisoners, and never speaking to one of them; the turnkey has just been talking to me about it, and he says that for your own sake you ought to associate with them a little. I am sure it would not do you any harm; you do not speak; it is always the way. I see very well you will never be satisfied till these dreadful men have played you some dangerous trick in revenge."
"You know not the horror with which they inspire me, any more than you can guess the personal reasons I have for avoiding and execrating them, and all who resemble them."
"Indeed, but I do know your reasons! I read the accounts you wrote for me, and which I went to fetch away from your lodgings after your imprisonment; from them I learned all the dangers you had incurred upon your arrival in Paris, because, when you were in the country, you refused to participate in the crimes of the bad man who had brought you up; and that it was in consequence of the last snare they laid to catch you that you quitted the Rue du Temple, without telling any one but me where you had gone to. And I read something else, too, in those papers," said Rigolette, casting down her eyes, while a bright blush dyed her cheeks; "I read things that—that—"
"You would never have known, I solemnly declare," exclaimed Germain, eagerly, "had it not been for the misfortune which befell me. But let me ask you to be as generous as you are good; forget and pardon my past follies, my insane hopes. 'Tis true, in times past I ventured to indulge such dreams, wild and unfounded as they were."
Rigolette had endeavoured a second time to draw a confession of his love from the lips of Germain by alluding to those tender and passionate effusions written by him, and dedicated to the remembrance of the grisette, for whom, as we have before stated, he had always felt the sincerest affection; but, the better to preserve the confiding familiarity with which he was treated by his pretty neighbour, he concealed his regard under the semblance of friendship.
Rendered more timid and sensitive by imprisonment, he could not for an instant believe it possible for Rigolette to reciprocate the attachment of a poor prisoner like himself, whose character was, moreover, tarnished by so foul an accusation as he laboured under, while previous to this calamity she had never manifested more than a sisterly interest in him. The grisette, finding herself so little understood, stifled a sigh, and awaited with hopeful eagerness a better opportunity of opening the eyes of Germain to the real state of her heart. She contented herself, therefore, with merely replying:
"To be sure, it is quite natural the sight of these wicked men should fill you with horror and disgust; but that is no reason for your exposing yourself to unnecessary dangers."
"I assure you that, in order to follow your advice, I have endeavoured to force myself to converse with such as seemed the least depraved among them; but you can form no notion what dreadful men they are, or what shocking language they talk."