“It isn’t your fault, Pierrette.”
She shook her head, with an air of conviction: “It’s always the fault of the family. You know that. You said so yourself.”
“I? When?”
“Yes, once before me, at Julienne, before the conviction. It worried me even then. And I brought her to see you one day.”
“I remember. And what did I say to her?”
“That when one had the good fortune to belong to an honest family, one ought to respect oneself all the more for it. Because in families everything is common property, land and debts, good conduct and bad.”
“Still, no one can throw a stone at you.”
“People do, though, just the same. And they’re right. Lucky enough I lost my husband before it all happened.”
“He would have protected you.”
“He would have killed her.”