She was exposed to every eye, the boldest gaze could
pry into her inmost soul, she had become a public object, nothing about
her was any longer her own, she herself could no longer find herself,
find anything in herself upon which she could lean, she was branded,
without and within, food for the general prurience, tossed
defenselessly upon the filthy floods of gossip, the centre of a fearful
occurrence from which she could no more dissever her thoughts. Sadness,
grief, anxiety, scorn, these were no longer feelings for her, her blood
coursed too wildly for that; uncertainty of herself dominated her,
doubts as to her perception, doubts as to visible things in general;
and now and then she would prick her finger with a needle just to feel
the pain, which would serve as evidence of her being awake and might
preserve her heart from decay. Added to this, the torment she suffered
from the intrusive: appeals to tell the truth, the jeers from below,
the command from above, the thirst for revenge and the ineffaceableness
of a word once spoken; lastly, she saw the whole world filled with red
tongues, ceaselessly chattering; bloody tongues with snakelike
movements, directed toward her; every object she touched turned into a
slippery tongue. Human countenances grew dim, save one, which, despite
guilt and condemnation, was enthroned, in heroic suffering, high above
the others, nay, appeared preeminent through his guilt as well as his
defiance. And the day she was told that she was to confront Bastide
Grammont in order to accuse him, her pulses beat in joyous measure
again for the first time, and she arrayed herself as if for a festival.

The meeting was to take place in the magistrate's office. Besides
Monsieur Jausion and his clerks, Counselor Pinaud, who had returned,
was present. Monsieur Jausion cast a malicious glance at him over his
spectacles as Clarissa Mirabel, decked in lace, rustled in, bowed
smiling to the gentlemen, and then swept her gaze with cheerful
calmness over the inhospitable room. From a frame in the centre of the
wall the fat and ill-humored face of the King looked down upon her, as
ill-humored as if each one of his subjects were especially repugnant to
him. She forgot that it was only a picture that hung before her and
looked up with a coquettish pout.

The magistrate made a sign, a side-door was thrown open, and Bastide
Grammont, with hands chained together and with an officer of justice on
either side of hi