A bell rings.
I rise as if electrified.... And then some one tells me that the jury have summoned the President and Maître Aubin. They want to be enlightened on some point.... The guards were whispering, and suddenly an unspeakable terror seizes me. They have talked aloud and cheerfully until now; they do not want me to hear the dreadful truth....
A quarter past eleven. Half-past eleven. A quarter to twelve. Midnight.... Still nothing!
Will this martyrdom never end? What right has any one to make me suffer so? And where is Marthe, my own child. If she were only here, perhaps I could bear this agony.... How she must suffer, if she knows....
More people enter the guards' room. The two old ushers, who have seen many, many such trials, come to see me. One hails from my own province, the other acts at night as maître d'hôtel and has seen me at many important dinners. One of them mutters in my ear: "Madame, don't you worry about anything. I am used to all this. Those jurors are all right; as sure as I stand here you will be acquitted, they can't help knowing that you are innocent.... Look here! The minute the verdict is known, I'll come to the door there and say, 'Hoo!' Then raise your head, enter bravely in the dock, for the last time and show them all who you are."
Then I hear two men discussing in the corridor: "I tell you," says one of them, "that she is done for. If the jury wanted to acquit her, they would not summon the President, and the whole thing would have been over long ago!"
A guard tells me: "It's no longer the 13th of November now, but the 14th. There's luck for you!" and he hands me a few more cards to sign....
A quarter past twelve.... Half-past twelve. The bell again.
No, the time has not yet come. The jurors want more explanations. This second shock has a merciful effect. It takes out of me the last spark of vitality. Everything is blank. I wait for hours, for days, now, for I no longer know what I am waiting for. There is a small crowd around me, and they all say, "Courage, have courage." Of course, I have courage. I have had courage for the past eighteen months; what does anything matter!
A quarter to one.... One o'clock.... A quarter past one. Now I feel it. Something is going to happen!...