d
with the clerk of the prison, went to this man. In order the better to
affiance herself to him, she took advantage of the advent of spring to
cull a sprig of real lilac in the fields. This sprig of lilac, attached
by a piece of sky-blue ribbon to the head of his bed, formed a pendant
to a sprig of consecrated box, an ornament which these poor desolate
alcoves never lack. The lilac withered thus.

This woman, like all Paris, had heard of the affair of the Palais-Royal
and of the two Italians, Malagutti and Ratta, arrested for the murder of
the money-changer.

She thought little about the tragedy, which did not concern her, and
lived only in her white lilac. This lilac was all in all to her; she
thought only of doing her "duty" to it.

One bright, sunny day she was seated in her room, sewing some garment or
other for her sorry evening toilet. Now and then she looked up from
her work at the lilac that hung at the head of the bed. At one of these
moments while her gaze was fixed upon the sprig of faded flower the
clock struck four.

Then she fancied she saw an extraordinary thing.

A sort of crimson pearl oozed from the extremity of the stalk of the
flower, grew larger, and dripped on to the white sheet of the bed.

It was a spot of blood.

That day, at that very hour, Ratta and Malagutti were executed.

It was evident that the white lilac was one of these two. But which one?

The hapless girl became insane and had to be confined in La Salpetriere.
She died there. From morn to night, and from night to morn, she would
gibber: "I am Mme. Ratta-Malagutti."

Thus are these sombre hearts.

IV.

Prostitution is an Isis whose final veil none has raised. There is a
sphinx in this gloomy odalisk of the frightful Sultan Everybody. None
has solved its enigma. It is Nakedness masked. A terrible spectacle!

Alas! in all that we have just recounted man is abominable, woman is
touching.

How many hapless ones have been driven to their fall!

The abyss is the friend of dreams. Fallen, as we have said, their
lamentable hearts have no other resource than to dream.

What caused their ruin was another dream, the dreadful dream of riches;
nightmare of glory, of azure, and ecstasy which weighs upon the chest of
the poor; flourish of trumpets heard in the gehenna, with the triumph
of the fortunate appearing resplendent in the immense night; prodigious
overture full of dawn! Carriages roll, gold falls in showers, la