"Ah! Madame, we don't know.... Your judge doesn't seem to like you."...
"I hope not; I cannot believe that."...
As we neared the Palace of Justice, I noticed that the driver was not taking us the usual way. The non-commissioned officer said: "We are going round to the Boulevard du Palais," and when, seeing that I was not being driven to the Dépôt, I asked where he was taking me, he replied, after much hesitation: "To the Souricière (the Mouse-Trap)."
"What!" I exclaimed in fearful dismay, "you mean to say that I am going to be shut up in one of those cages, like a beast?... Is the women's Souricière like that of the men?"
"Yes. Madame.... You will have to wait there until the Judge is ready to receive you."... And with great gentleness, the man added: "We have lost a great deal of time on our way to Saint-Lazare, and fetched you as late as possible, so that you will not have to wait long."
I thanked the officer, entered through the "new" door, and was taken through low, damp, cold passages to the Souricière. Saint-Lazare is bad enough, Heaven knows; the Dépôt worse, but the Souricière is an abomination. Let the reader imagine two rows of cages, one on top of the other, and with steps to reach the upper row. Opposite, on a kind of platform, sits a Sister, who can see through the iron bars of each case the prisoners of both rows of cages.
When she saw me, the Sister on duty, Sœur Berthe, a very old, sweet-eyed sister, tottered towards me and took me to one of the empty cages.
When I say cages, I am not exaggerating. Each cage, unspeakably filthy and foul-smelling, is about seven feet high, five feet long, and three feet wide. The door forms one wall, as it were; the upper half is a square hole barred from side to side and from top to bottom. Air enters through this hole, which has no glass. The door opens from the outside.
I had not been in "my" cage for one minute before I was ill, and I had to remain there, frozen, dejected and ill, from nine o'clock—for, by a refinement of cruelty, M. André had sent early for me at Saint-Lazare—until noon. Women in other cages, near me and above me, shouted at me. They could not see one another, but they had all witnessed my arrival through the bars of their "windows"; somehow, they knew who I was and the insults I heard at Saint-Lazare were hurled at me again! Sometimes, one woman just to contradict the others, would take my part and scream at the top of her voice: "I tell you she is a kid (une gosse), and kids haven't what's needed to strangle a man and a woman! Shut up, you fools!" Fierce quarrels ensued, from cage to cage. Every woman shouted and thumped on "her" walls. The whole flimsy structure of the "Mouse-Trap" shook ominously... and Sister Berthe on her platform went on knitting quietly, without raising her head. She had witnessed such scenes ever since she had been on duty at the Souricière, and did not even take notice. After a time, the women quieted down, and I heard them say to the Sister: "I am hungry.... Give me a cigarette. That deceives hunger.... We all know you have cigarettes!" And the kind old Sister sometimes handed them cigarettes through the bars!
I heard afterwards that those wretched women often had to wait in those foul cages for eight or nine hours for the Examining-Magistrate or the prison van—which they call the panier à salade (salad-basket).