"Oh!" said one, "we know all we want. Newspapers are not allowed here, but when you have a nice counsel, he hands some to you secretly.... Besides, new batches of women arrive every day, women who have just been arrested.... They know the latest news, and when they walk round the yard you can hear them talk."
The noise of steps outside, of the key being turned twice, and of the bolts being drawn—a noise which I was to hear so many times a day during a whole year, but which always jarred painfully on my nerves—interrupted the woman's explanations.
The man with the fair, pointed beard and the stern expression whom I had seen on my arrival at Saint-Lazare, entered, followed by the Sister who had given me the sheets, and whom I will henceforth call by her name, Sister Léonide. The two women jumped up and said: "Good morning, Monsieur le Directeur."
He turned to me, and in a matter-of-fact tone asked: "Are you satisfied? Is there anything you want, Madame?"
"Oh, yes!... I want to see my daughter."
He made no answer to that, but said: "Your counsel will no doubt come to see you to-day," and walked away.
"How stupid of you," said one of the women to me; "you might have obtained anything. For the Director to call on you like that, early in the morning, it must be a political crime." (This remark amazed me.) "You should have asked for another stove, this one draws badly, or for an extra blanket...." And both started telling me what I should ask for the next time the Director came, so that our cell should be comfortable.
The door opened again. A young Sister, with a healthy glow on her round cheeks, came in.
"What do you want to-day, Madame?" she asked.
I could not understand. "She is Sister Ange," I was told; "she is the Canteen Sister." Still I did not understand.