"Their wooden shoes, and anything they can lay their hands on, I suppose...."
Then, abruptly, the noise outside the door ceased, but it started again almost immediately, behind one of the walls, where apparently a whole gang of prisoners were lodged. For a while, they shouted obscenities, and the vilest insults were once more hurled at me: "Murderess! You strangled your own mother, you killed your own husband.... If we had you here, we would gouge your eyes out, tear you to shreds, you assassin!"....
And all the time those demons hit the wall and tried to smash it, piece by piece.
Cold perspiration bathed my temples. Firmin was livid, and fell near me, on my bed. We held each other's hands. Firmin said: "Don't pay any attention, Madame. I have heard much worse than that. Here, upstairs, they are almost quiet; the women are awaiting their trial, but downstairs, where I was, there are the condemned women. If you knew how they insulted and beat me when they heard I was going upstairs, to this cell, and when they found out, somehow, that I would be with you!"
I could hardly hear what she said, so terrific was the noise in the next cell.
Then the noise ceased.... The Sisters were coming.... But as soon as the round had passed, the din began afresh, and the insults and the threats were even worse than before.... Firmin and I, in despair, forced paper into our ears, and getting into our beds, we covered our heads not only with our blankets, but with our clothes. Still I could hear those women.... Yet another sleepless night, yet another night of terror and agony!
The next day I heard the gong, and then a voice shouted that number "Sixty-one," to which I was already getting used. It was Marthe. For half an hour we remained together and every second new life returned to my bruised body, and hope to my aching heart. How brave the darling was, how she tried to keep back her tears so as not to make me more miserable than I already was.... And then my counsel came, and the pastor....
I begged the latter to intercede in my favour. It was impossible for me to go on like this. I felt, especially after all the shocks I had suffered during the past few months, that I would go mad if I had to go through many more such nights as the last.
"I'll see," said M. Arboux. "But it would not be fair if an exception were made in your favour."
I spent three more days and three more nights in Cell No. 11, and night and day I heard insults. When, for some cause or other, the women went through the corridor, they raised the shutter of the peep-hole in my door and let loose a torrent of abuse. Then Firmin and I would stand against the wall on one side of the door, so that we could not be seen.