"We are going to make a beautiful couch!" she cried, and forthwith she pulled the straw mattresses off the spare beds—each mattress was just a bundle of straw inside a sack—and also the three straw bolsters (for there were five beds in our cell). She placed the mattresses one on top of another in the centre of the cell and covered the "couch" with a spare sheet, and in front of it we put the "dressing-room" table, which was now adorned not only with the photograph of my mother and my child, but also with one of Juliette's daughter. We sat down, feeling almost cheerful, on the improvised "bergère," and then... we heard the bolt of the door being drawn and the key being turned. Sister Léonide entered, followed by "our Mother." The former saw at once the piece of furniture we had added to our small stock, and it was all that she could do not to laugh. Then, "Our Mother" saw it too.... I forestalled the coming reproaches by taking the Sister Superior by the hand and making her sit on the bergère. She had to admit that it was considerably more comfortable than the hard beds and the rush chairs in the cell.... But prison rules were prison rules, and gloomily, Juliette and I started undoing our great work.
Both "Our Mother" and Sister Léonide watched us despondently, and the former suddenly said: "Don't do it just yet.... Rest a little on the couch first."
On Good Friday, Pastor Arboux came to me and I received the Holy Communion. He had brought the bread and the wine from his little chapel, and we knelt down together afterwards on the tiles of the cell.
On Easter Day I felt unusually depressed. It was such a great day at home. My mother and I hid eggs of all sizes and colours in the garden. Each of them contained surprises, and Marthe spent most of the day looking for them. When a child I gave her chicks and ducklings on that occasion. She very soon learned to know them, and she gave them names. One Easter Day she came into the drawing-room followed by all her protégés, and her favourite cock, L'Effronté (Bold-face), a bird I had given her the year before, flew on the grand piano and crowed!
I sang at the Temple of l'Etoile on Easter Day, and in the evening Marthe, one or two musical friends and I, gave a concert. The whole family was gathered, and all the little roughnesses of life were forgotten. My husband gave up painting and came down from his dear studio, and played with Marthe, whom he adored.
M. Arboux came to Saint-Lazare, early in the morning, and although it was on one of the busiest days of the year with him, he remained with me longer than he intended to, for he saw how miserable I felt.
After vespers—Juliette had attended that service and had then gone to the "parlour"—the Sister Superior entered my cell. I jumped off my bed, where I was sobbing, and apologised. Gently "Our Mother" scolded me, and said: "You will wear your eyes out; you must not cry.... I have brought you some visitors."...
Several Sisters came in one by one, and my cell was lit up by all those smiling faces and the white cornettes.
Sister Léonide gave me some primroses. "They will replace," she said, "the faded mimosa on your little table. These primroses were sent us by a poor girl who has not forgotten the little we were able to do for her when she was a prisoner here.... 'Our Mother' has given me permission to offer you those few flowers."
There were nine or ten Sisters in my cell now; they all spoke kindly to me, and every one made me a little present. "Our Mother" handed me a small photograph of a Raphael Madonna; another, two new-laid eggs sent her by her parents, farmers near Paris.... One Sister, young, and with mischievous eyes, gave me a very faded branch of "snow-balls," and said: "Sister Léonide has told me that you can revive flowers that are almost dead.... When can I come to see the miracle?"