After a long pause, during which she gazed out of the window, Trilby said, in an abstracted kind of way, as though she were talking to herself: “Après tout, c’est pas déjà si raide, de claquer! J’en ai tant vus, qui ont passé par la! Au bout du fossé la culbute, ma foi!”
“What are you saying to yourself in French, Trilby? Your French is so difficult to understand!”
“Oh, I beg your pardon! I was thinking it’s not so difficult to die, after all! I’ve seen such lots of people do it. I’ve nursed them, you know—papa and mamma and Jeannot, and Angèle Boisse’s mother-in-law, and a poor casseur de pierres, Colin Maigret, who lived in the Impasse des Taupes St. Germain. He’d been run over by an omnibus in the Rue Vaugirard, and had to have both his legs cut off just above the knee. They none of them seemed to mind dying a bit. They weren’t a bit afraid! I’m not!
“Poor people don’t think much of death. Rich people shouldn’t either. They should be taught when they’re quite young to laugh at it and despise it, like the Chinese. The Chinese die of laughing just as their heads are being cut off, and cheat the executioner! It’s all in the day’s work, and we’re all in the same boat—so who’s afraid!”
“Dying is not all, my poor child! Are you prepared to meet your Maker face to face? Have you ever thought about God, and the possible wrath to come if you should die unrepentant?”
“Oh, but I shan’t! I’ve been repenting all my life! Besides, there’ll be no wrath for any of us—not even the worst! Il y aura amnistie générale! Papa told me so, and he’d been a clergyman, like Mr. Thomas Bagot. I often think about God. I’m very fond of Him. One must have something perfect to look up to and be fond of—even if it’s only an idea!
“Though some people don’t even believe He exists! Le père Martin didn’t—but, of course, he was only a chiffonnier, and doesn’t count.
“One day, though, Durien, the sculptor, who’s very clever, and a very good fellow indeed, said:
“ ‘Vois-tu, Trilby—I’m very much afraid He doesn’t really exist, le bon Dieu! most unfortunately for me, for I adore Him! I never do a piece of work without thinking how nice it would be if I could only please Him with it!’
“And I’ve often thought, myself, how heavenly it must be to be able to paint, or sculpt, or make music, or write beautiful poetry, for that very reason!
“Why, once on a very hot afternoon we were sitting, a lot of us, in the courtyard outside la mère Martin’s shop, drinking coffee with an old Invalide called Bastide Lendormi, one of the Vieille Garde, who’d only got one leg and one arm and one eye, and everybody was very fond of him. Well, a model called Mimi la Salope came out of the Mont-de-piété opposite, and Père Martin called out to her to come and sit down, and gave her a cup of coffee, and asked her to sing.
“She sang a song of Béranger’s, about Napoleon the Great, in which it says:
“Parlez-nous de lui, grandmère!
Grandmère, parlez-nous de lui!
I suppose she sang it very well, for it made old Bastide Lendormi cry; and when Père Martin blaguè’d him about it, he said,
“ ‘C’est égal, voyez-vous! to sing like that is to pray!’
“And then I thought how lovely it would be if I could only sing like Mimi la Salope, and I’ve thought so ever since—just to pray!”
“What! Trilby? if you could only sing like—Oh, but never mind, I forgot! Tell me, Trilby—do you ever pray to Him, as other people pray?”
“Pray to Him? Well, no—not often—not in words and on my knees and with my hands together, you know! Thinking’s praying, very often—don’t you think so? And so’s being sorry and ashamed when one’s done a mean thing, and glad when one’s resisted a temptation, and grateful when it’s a fine day and one’s enjoying one’s self without hurting anyone else! What is it but praying when you try and bear up after losing all you cared to live for? And very good praying too! There can be prayers without words just as well as songs, I suppose; and Svengali used to say that songs without words are the best!
“And then it seems mean to be always asking for things. Besides, you don’t get them any the faster that way, and that shows!
“La mère Martin used to be always praying. And Père Martin used always to laugh at her; yet he always seemed to get the things he wanted oftenest!
“I prayed once, very hard indeed! I prayed for Jeannot not to die!”
“Well—but how do you repent, Trilby, if you do not humble yourself, and pray for forgiveness on your knees?”
“Oh, well—I don’t exactly know! Look here, Mrs. Bagot, I’ll tell you the lowest and meanest thing I ever did. …”
(Mrs. Bagot felt a little nervous.)
“I’d promised to take Jeannot on Palm-Sunday to St. Philippe du Roule, to hear l’abbé Bergamot. But Durien (that’s the sculptor, you know) asked me to go with him to St. Germain, where there was a fair, or something; and with Mathieu, who was a student in law; and a certain Victorine Letellier, who—who was Mathieu’s mistress, in fact. And I went on Sunday morning to tell Jeannot that I couldn’t take him.
“He cried so dreadfully that I thought I’d give up the others and take him to St. Philippe, as I’d promised. But then Durien and Mathieu and Victorine drove up and waited outside, and so I didn’t take him, and went with them, and I didn’t enjoy anything all day, and was miserable.
“They were in an open carriage with two horses; it was Mathieu’s treat; and Jeannot might have ridden on
