We were both weeping, she kissed my hand, and tottered away.
I kept the little branch of mimosa for four months. It became smaller and smaller, but it still looked like a flower, and the little gold pearls were the only beautiful things in that horrible cell.
The mimosa stood in an empty penny ink bottle, before a small frame containing a photograph of my mother, and one of Marthe when she was a baby.
CHAPTER XXIV
SAINT-LAZARE
TOWARDS the end of December 1907, after I had been about one month in prison, I had a long conversation with Maître Aubin and also with M. Desmoulin. I told them all I knew about the dreadful mystery.
When M. Desmoulin heard all the details concerning the mysterious personage whom my late husband and I had always called the "German," the pearl necklace given me by President Faure, and about the "documents," he eagerly said to me: "I will speak to the Prime Minister about this, and within a few days you will be a free woman again!"
Days went by. M. Desmoulin came frequently, but alas! instead of good tidings he gradually broke the news to me that an immediate release was out of the question!
I questioned my counsel. He, too, saw clearly that the pearls and the documents were the keys to the mystery, or, at any rate, one of the keys, but he hesitated as to the advisability of drawing attention to these facts.... "The whole affair is already so complicated," he explained, "it would perhaps be unwise to add new difficulties to... You have not spoken about the necklace and Faure's Memoirs to M. Leydet,—at any rate, not explicitly—you have not mentioned them so far to M. André... It is always dangerous and even suspicious to come forward with new statements.... And then, you must realise that the Government, the Law, will be rather displeased if those facts are brought forth, if the private life of a former President of the Republic has to be searched and discussed.... And it is never wise to upset the Government or to displease the Law.... After all, I will do what you decide but I am here to advise you; I am here, above all, to get you out of prison, to restore you to your Marthe.... Again, you have not sufficient proofs about those pearls. You don't know their exact origin, there is a mystery about them, the President told you so himself. It will probably cause a great deal of unpleasantness, and probably lead to no definite result.... A quoi bon!"
"I had thought that a counsel was a man who feared nothing and no one, who, with a strong conscience, indomitable will, and unconquerable logic, eliminated all obstacles and—at all costs—made truth triumphant in the end."
"Truth is a two-edged tool, Madame. The first duty of a counsel is to save his client, and I shall save you easily enough, for there are no charges against you whatever, but you must leave everything to me, and not complicate matters unnecessarily."