"So much the better!" I replied in my eagerness.
The two inspectors laughed.... That was the first laughter I had heard since Ghirelli and Rosselli had burst into endless laughter because I did not know that the coffee was sold ready prepared.
We reached the Dépôt near the Sainte Chapelle, the stained windows of which I saw from a distance; and I thought of the day when I took Marthe to that marvellous Gothic jewel to admire her grandfather's work. The inspectors, after wishing me "good luck," entrusted me to the care of the portier who in his turn led me to the Sisters' gate. The portier, too, was kind and polite. A man of middle age with clean-cut features and grey hair, he saluted me in the military fashion.... Every time I came to the Dépôt, he had a good word for me, and these little attentions were a source of great comfort to me, who, at Saint-Lazare, heard day after day the foulest and vilest insults.
A Sister took me to a small cell, and locked the door on me. But it was soon opened again, and I heard a voice say, "The Sister Superior." I looked up and was transfixed. I have seen many beautiful women, both in life and in art, but none could have compared in divine loveliness with the woman who entered my cell at that Dépôt. The oval of her face was perfect, her eyes, which seemed like liquid and transparent turquoises, neither blue nor green, were exquisite.... Her voice was the most musical I had ever heard. Her refined and shapely hands were poems of loveliness. But her supreme charm was her expression. It was not of this world; it was too noble, too lofty, and, above all, too serene....
Later, when we had often spoken together, I begged her, discreetly, hesitatingly, to tell me about herself. She merely said, "I am the Sister Superior of the Dépôt... and I have suffered a great deal in the past...." I never dared ask her another question, but I have often wondered what great lady she was... and to what great sorrow she referred....
My cell at the Dépôt was even worse than my cell at Saint-Lazare. It was small and low, and had only an air-hole for window; there was a bed, a board fastened into the wall, used as a table, and a three-legged stool held to the floor by a chain.... But when the Sister Superior entered the cell, everything seemed radiant and beautiful.
She coaxed me into eating a little, asked me a few questions about my daughter, and comforted me.
Then the Director of the Dépôt entered, a tall, well-dressed, stern-faced man, with the look of the officer about him. He, too, compelled me to eat: "The Instruction will exhaust you. You will need a great deal of physical as well as moral strength." After he had gone, the Sister Superior advised me to lie down on the bed until I was sent for, and I did as she told me.
A sister came to fetch me, and led me to a door where two soldiers of the Municipal Guard were waiting for me. It was an awful blow to me. I did not mind the inspectors. I knew and liked them, and they had long worked with and for me ... but a soldier on either side of me!...
They saluted me, however, and later, when I asked one of them why he always saluted me, a prisoner accused of murder, as he would an officer, he replied: "I don't know myself, I'm sure, Madame... but there, I can't help it."