shoulders enormous bundles of wet napkins or sheets,
wring them, spread them out, and then run to Rueil to get the soiled
clothes from the customers. I did not complain (I was already too
proud to complain); but, if I was ordered to do something that seemed
to me too unjust, I refused obstinately to obey, and then I was
unmercifully beaten. In spite of all, I might, perhaps, have become
attached to the woman, had she not had the disgusting habit of
drinking. Every week regularly, on the day when she took the clothes
to Paris (it was on Wednesdays), she came home drunk. And then,
according as, with the fumes of the wine, anger or gayety rose to
her brain, there were atrocious scenes or obscene jests.

"When she was in that condition, she inspired me with horror. And
one Wednesday, as I showed my feelings too plainly, she struck me
so hard, that she broke my arm. I had been with her for twenty
months. The injury she had done me sobered her at once. She
became frightened, overpowered me with caresses, begging me to say
nothing to any one. I promised, and kept faithfully my word.

"But a physician had to be called in. There had been witnesses who
spoke. The story spread along the river, as far as Bougival and
Rueil. And one morning an officer of gendarmes called at the house;
and I don't exactly know what would have happened, if I had not
obstinately maintained that I had broken my arm in falling down
stairs."

What surprised Maxence most was Mlle. Lucienne's simple and natural
tone. No emphasis, scarcely an appearance of emotion. One might
have thought it was somebody's else life that she was narrating.
Meantime she was going on,

"Thanks to my obstinate denials the woman was not disturbed. But
the truth was known; and her reputation, which was not good before,
became altogether bad. I became an object of interest. The very
same people who had seen me twenty times staggering painfully under
a load of wet clothes, which was terrible, began to pity me
prodigiously because I had had an arm broken, which was nothing.

"At last a number of our customers arranged to take me out of a
house, in which, they said, I must end by perishing under bad
treatment.

"And, after many fruitless efforts, they discovered, at last, at
La Jonchere, an old Jewess lady, very rich, and a widow without
children, who consented to take charge of me.

"I hesitated at first to accept these offers; but noticing that the
laundr