She had been saying that all day. Holding on to her senses and saying to herself that as soon as this horrible and bewildering tumult was over, as soon as she was alone and quiet, away from the abuse, the staring, the rough handling, she would think–straighten things out in her mind, decide what must be done.
And now she was alone she found she could not think; she had acted on impulse, not reflection, all her life; besides, she was rather stupid.
Her mind wandered off to trivial things: the details that had made her life still chiefly interested her; she noticed the dull small room, the wooden bed with a rough coverlet, the broken chair. She pulled out the bed pillow and shuddered to see that it was soiled. Then she began to consider her own dress.
She wore the gown she had been arrested in, a plain yellow taffeta with muslin ruffles at the throat and elbows and a dark green pelerine with a cape.
Her hat had gone; on putting her hands up to her fair curls she found that her hair ribbon had gone too. Her dress was torn and muddy round the hem, and one of her light boots was broken.
She put her hand to her bosom and drew out a string of pearls that she had, the moment before her arrest at her country château, snatched up mechanically and concealed in her dress. The soft lustre and colour of them gave her pleasure and comfort; she handled them lovingly and laid them next her cheek.
She remembered that she had worn them on the occasion when King Louis, at the review, had stood bare-headed at the door of her sedan, her lacquey before the eyes of France.
And she was still as beautiful as she had been then–perhaps more beautiful; therefore it could not be that they were going to murder her. Beauty like hers was a power. The men who had put her here could not have noticed her.
She looked round, hoping for a mirror, but there was none.
She put her hand to her face, felt her smooth skin, her glossy hair, her delicate neck, the curve of her lips.…