much to the wardress's annoyance.
'There!' she said crossly. 'You have woken the whole floor. It will take me a good quarter of an hour to get them quiet again. You deserve punishment.'
'Don't upset yourself,' Marianne said kindly. 'I'll be quiet. But you be sure to keep your promise!'
'I have promised nothing. But I do promise. Now, be quiet.'
The face vanished and the hatch snapped shut. The prisoner heard the nun's voice, loud and firm now, moving along the corridor telling each one to be quiet.
Satisfied with her progress, Marianne returned to her mattress, her ears alert for the various noises around her. Who were they, these women whose sleep she had disturbed, whose dreams she had unwittingly entered? Were they real malefactors, thieves and prostitutes or, like herself, innocent victims of the terrible police machine? She felt an instinctive sympathy for these faceless, complaining voices, simply because they were women. How many of them had suffered, like herself, at the hands of one or more men. In all the books she had read, excepting possibly the frightful story of Lady Macbeth, every wretched woman who came to a bad end was always driven to it by a man.
And so, pondering on these other women, invisible yet ever-present, with whom fate had thrown her, Marianne fell asleep at last without realizing it. When she woke, it was broad daylight, as broad, that is, as daylight could be in a cell in St Lazare, and the sister wardress was standing beside her with a bundle under her arm. Dumped on the bed, this bundle proved to contain a plain grey woollen dress, a cap and fichu of unbleached linen, a coarse shift, thick, black woollen stockings and a pair of clogs.
'Take off your clothes,' the sister commanded sternly, 'and put these on.'
It was a different nun from the night before and suddenly Marianne lost her temper.
'Put on these hideous things? Certainly not! To begin with, I am not staying here. I am to see the Minister of Police this morning and—'
The newcomer's face was expressionless as her voice. It was so large and pale as to be almost indistinguishable from her veil, so that the total effect was something like a full moon, utterly devoid of character. Apparently, however, its owner knew how to obey orders. In exactly the same tone, she repeated: 'Get undressed and put these on.'
'Never!'
The nun showed no sign of anger. Going out into the passage, she took a clapper from her pocket and banged three times. Not more than a few seconds later, two strapping creatures whose uniforms told Marianne they must be two of her fellow prisoners, burst into the cell. In fact, they were so large and strong that but for their petticoats and a certain spareseness of moustache, they might easily have been mistaken for a pair of grenadiers. Moreover, the identical vivid scarlet and high polish of their cheeks showed that the prison diet was by no means as debilitating as might have been imagined and that, for these two at any rate, it certainly included a fair ration of wine.
In no time at all, Marianne, speechless with horror, was stripped of her own clothes and dressed in the prison uniform, receiving a resounding slap on the buttocks from one of her impromptu tire-women in the process – a pleasantry which called down a severe rebuke on the head of its author.
'It was so tempting,' was the woman's excuse. 'Pity to lock up such a jolly little piece!'
Marianne's indignation was such that it almost robbed her of her voice but disdaining the two slatterns as unworthy of her notice, she turned her attention to the wardress.
'I wish to see the Mother Superior,' she announced. 'It is very urgent.'
'Our Mother Superior has let it be understood that she will see you today. Until then, you will wait quietly. For the present, go with the others to the chapel—'
Marianne had no choice but to leave the cell, stumbling in the clogs that were too big for her, and join the shuffling file of the other prisoners. About a score of women were moving in single file down the high, narrow corridor amid a great deal of coughing, sniffing and muttering and a strong smell of unwashed bodies. The general impression was of a herd rather than a file. The faces of all wore the same expression of dumb apathy. All their feet dragged on the uneven flagstones, all their shoulders were bowed. Only by their height and the hair, blonde, black, brown or grey escaping from the coarse linen caps, could the female prisoners of St Lazare be told apart.
Swallowing her impatience and resentment, Marianne took her place in the line but it was not long before she realized that the woman behind her was amusing herself by systematically treading on her heels. The first time it happened, she only turned round, thinking it was an accident. Coming after her was a dumpy little blonde person, her eyes hidden by pale, drooping lids that made her look half asleep. Her clothes were clean but the vacant grin on her slack lips made Marianne suddenly long to slap her face. The next time the rough wooden shoe scraped her ankle, she muttered under her breath: 'Watch what you're doing, you're hurting me—'
No answer. The other girl kept her eyes lowered, the same stupid smile on her pasty face. Then, for the third time, the sabot ground into Marianne's heel, so hard that she could not help giving out a sharp cry of pain.
Patience was not one of Marianne's chief virtues and the last few hours had used up what little she had left. She swung round instantly and dealt the offender a ringing blow on her plump cheek. This time, she found herself gazing into a pair of almost colourless eyes that reminded her oddly of an adder which her favourite horse, Sea Bird, had crushed beneath his hoof one day out hunting. The other girl said nothing, she simply bared her yellow teeth and hurled herself straight at her enemy's stomach. Immediately, all those round the two women stopped to watch, instinctively forming a circle to leave room for the two who were fighting. There were shouts of encouragement, all addressed to Marianne's opponent.
'Go it, la Tricoteuse! Hit her!'
'Thump her hard! Stuck-up little madam! An
'Smash her! Hear the bloody racket she kicked up last night? Asking for the Minister of Police!'
'She's an informer! Do her good to cool her off!'
Marianne avoided the blow aimed at her stomach but she was appalled at this unexpected overflow of hatred. La Tricoteuse, apparently meaning to do her best to satisfy her supporters, drew off for a fresh attack. Her jaw worked spasmodically, betraying only a mindless lust to kill. The colourless eyes gleamed dangerously and all at once, Marianne saw a short, sharp knife glinting in the woman's hand. The head of the column of women had already reached the staircase and Marianne knew that she was lost. The way to the end of the corridor was blocked by several prisoners, among them, she saw with horror, the two dragoons who had dressed her. All of them seemed united against the newcomer in their midst and determined to give her short shrift. If she escaped la Tricoteuse's knife, she would not escape the clogs of the others. Already, she could see two or three of those closest to her had taken off their wooden shoes and were brandishing them threateningly, ready to batter her to death if she refused to succumb meekly to the knife. One shoe, she noticed, had been filed to a murderously sharp point.
Marianne cast an anguished glance at the staircase but the nun leading the column must by now have been at the bottom. It was all happening with such dreadful speed. In another instant, she would be dead, pointlessly murdered by a gang of semi-lunatics. All these women were strangers to her and yet they seemed to be looking forward to her death as though to a special treat. As la Tricoteuse bore down on her, the knife held high, Marianne gave one terrified scream.
'Help!'
Her cry pierced through the blanket of muffled, whispering voices which surrounded her like a sickening wall of hatred. The knife passed within a hair's-breadth of her head. But her efforts to avoid it brought her close to one of the other prisoners and the raised sabot all but caught her full on the forehead. As it was, she received only a glancing blow on the head and owed it to her cap and the thickness of her hair that she was not stunned. Still there seemed no escape. La Tricoteuse was coming for her again with an idiot giggle that terrified Marianne, while all around her were grinning faces twisted into grotesque masks of bestial cruelty. How could human beings sink so low?
But her cry for help had been heard. Before la Tricoteuse could attack for the third time, the sister- wardress returned, flanked by another bearing a massive cudgel. The circle of viragos was broken up and, thrusting her way through, the nun seized la Tricoteuse by the arm and twisted the knife out of her grasp. Meanwhile, her companion, dealing out some well-timed blows ill-suited to the sanctity of her calling but very
