When Norine, through the boasting of Alexandre and Alfred, who took pleasure in astonishing her, began to suspect the exploits of the band, she felt so frightened that she had a strong bolt placed upon her door.  And when night had fallen she no longer admitted any visitor until she knew his name.  Her torture had been lasting for nearly two years; she was ever quivering with alarm at the thought of Alexandre rushing in upon her some dark night.  He was twenty now; he spoke authoritatively, and threatened her with atrocious revenge whenever he had to retire with empty hands.  One day, in spite of Cecile, he threw himself upon the wardrobe and carried off a bundle of linen, handkerchiefs, towels, napkins, and sheets, intending to sell them.  And the sisters did not dare to pursue him down the stairs.  Despairing, weeping, overwhelmed by it all, they had sunk down upon their chairs.

That winter proved a very severe one; and the two poor workwomen, pillaged in this fashion, would have perished in their sorry home of cold and starvation, together with the dear child for whom they still did their best, had it not been for the help which their old friend, Madame Angelin, regularly brought them.  She was still a lady-delegate of the Poor Relief Service, and continued to watch over the children of unhappy mothers in that terrible district of Grenelle, whose poverty is so great.  But for a long time past she had been unable to do anything officially for Norine.  If she still brought her a twenty-franc piece every month, it was because charitable people intrusted her with fairly large amounts, knowing that she could distribute them to advantage in the dreadful inferno which her functions compelled her to frequent.  She set her last joy and found the great consolation of her desolate, childless life in thus remitting alms to poor mothers whose little ones laughed at her joyously as soon as they saw her arrive with her hands full of good things.

One day when the weather was frightful, all rain and wind, Madame Angelin lingered for a little while in Norine’s room.  It was barely two o’clock in the afternoon, and she was just beginning her round.  On her lap lay her little bag, bulging out with the gold and the silver which she had to distribute.  Old Moineaud was there, installed on a chair and smoking his pipe, in front of her.  And she felt concerned about his needs, and explained that she would have greatly liked to obtain a monthly relief allowance for him.

“But if you only knew,” she added, “what suffering there is among the poor during these winter months.  We are quite swamped, we cannot give to everybody, there are too many.  And after all you are among the fortunate ones.  I find some lying like dogs on the tiled floors of their rooms, without a scrap of coal to make a fire or even a potato to eat.  And the poor children, too, good Heavens!  Children in heaps among vermin, without shoes, without clothes, all growing up as if destined for prison or the scaffold, unless consumption should carry them off.”