How they loathed one another, and how they fought!... The Sisters hardly dared interfere, and it was only on rare occasions that the male warders were called upon to put an end to fierce quarrels and free fights. On one occasion I saw, through the bars of my window, two women literally tearing one another to pieces. They were gipsies, known at Saint-Lazare as "les noires" ("the black ones"). Their hair was loose, their clothes in shreds; they ploughed each other's face with their nails. Their mouths were torn and blood streamed over their cheeks and chins, giving them the appearance of demons. One had picked up a piece of sharp flint, and with it slashed the face of her enemy. Other women watched the fight and yelled with joy. The Sisters were powerless, and at last a warder was sent for.... He came, quietly. He was an old man who knew.... In each hand he held a bowlful of thick yellowish soup. Without a word, he handed one to each combatant.... Like beasts, they instantaneously forgot their battle, and eagerly started gulping down the soup, spooning it out with their hands.
I never dared remain very long at the window, for when the prisoners saw me, they invariably hurled at me shouts of execration.
I helped Firmin with the sewing, and by sewing all day and a great part of the night, managed to earn seven or eight francs a month. The work was paid for at the rate of one halfpenny per towel, napkin, or slip (one franc for two dozen), twopence per tablecloth and threepence for large sheets, but you had to pay for your cotton and needles, and when the work was not "perfect," it was refused, or no more work was given to you! With what I earned, I bought food from the canteen for Firmin, and my poor companion repaid me with such real devotion, such touching attentions as I had never received from any one, except from my Mother and Marthe.
The Sisters were so pleased with my work that they gave me the more difficult sewing to do—piles of fine napkins and tablecloths for the Spring sale at the Printemps and the Bon Marché.... No wonder those vast stores can sell beautiful table-linen at low prices which make purchasers exclaim, as I had so often done myself: "How can they do it!"
After a few months, my fingers became sore, and bled constantly—for besides the sewing, I had to scrub the cell, to prepare the fire, to wash up, to iron my own things (which I did by pressing them against the stove-pipe!) and all this soon ruins hands which have been used chiefly to play the piano, to embroider, or to write... Firmin, and later Jacq, wanted to do all the rough work for me, but that would not have been fair, and I insisted on taking my turn at it.
Sister Léonide then kindly taught me to make the "frivolité" (tatting), for which no needle was required, and for a time, I did no other work.
I have often thought of the sarcastic remarks certain newspapers and probably the Prosecution would have made, had they known that in prison I spent weeks making "frivolité!"... Did they not think it an extremely funny and eloquent omen that in the days of my childhood, I rode a mare called "Cléopâtre"!
There was a library at Saint-Lazare, but I could not read, for reading gave me neuralgia. Firmin read to me sometimes, very slowly and monotonously, of course, but I was very thankful to her.
Marthe came twice a week, and later, after I had been very ill for a time, she was allowed to come to the prison three times a week. Those visits were, need I say it, the one great solace in my misery. Poor little Marthe, how courageous she was, and how well she found the words that would comfort me and help me to live on until her next visit.... And to think that after my trial, after I had been acquitted, she was kept away from me for nearly two years, by kind souls who, thinking that I had not yet suffered enough, told her such fearful things about her mother and threatened her with so many calamities if she dared to come to me, that the poor child, who suffered as much as I did, alas, found it impossible to disobey those strict and inhuman orders, until, having married the man she loved, a young Italian painter, poor, but with a noble heart, she craved my forgiveness—as though I had anything to forgive her!—and came to me at last.
Maître Aubin also came two or three times a week, and not only gave me excellent legal advice, but did his utmost to comfort me in my awful predicament. His devotion, and that of his two secretaries, was truly admirable. And there were the visits of M. Desmoulin and of Pastor Arboux. I saw my notary, Maître Jousselin, several times, for I had to "emancipate" my daughter to enable her to sign certain documents and "represent" me in various circumstances.