“Ah! but I was glad, I assure you!  I did all that Madame Boudin told me to do.  And then I laid him on my bed.  And then such a pain griped me again that I thought I should die.  If you knew what it meant, you there, you would not do so much of this.  I fell on my knees, and then toppled over backward on the floor; and it griped me again, perhaps one hour, perhaps two.  I lay there all alone—­and then another one comes—­another little one—­two, yes, two, like this.  I took him up as I did the first one, and then I put him on the bed, the two side by side.  Is it possible, tell me, two children, and I who get only twenty francs a month?  Say, is it possible?  One, yes, that can be managed by going without things, but not two.  That turned my head.  What do I know about it?  Had I any choice, tell me?

“What could I do?  I felt as if my last hour had come.  I put the pillow over them, without knowing why.  I could not keep them both; and then I threw myself down, and I lay there, rolling over and over and crying until I saw the daylight come into the window.  Both of them were quite dead under the pillow.  Then I took them under my arms and went down the stairs out in the vegetable garden.  I took the gardener’s spade and I buried them under the earth, digging as deep a hole as I could, one here and the other one there, not together, so that they might not talk of their mother if these little dead bodies can talk.  What do I know about it?

“And then, back in my bed, I felt so sick that I could not get up.  They sent for the doctor and he understood it all.  I’m telling you the truth, Your Honor.  Do what you like with me; I’m ready.”

Half of the jury were blowing their noses violently to keep from crying.  The women in the courtroom were sobbing.

The president asked her: 

“Where did you bury the other one?”

“The one that you have?” she asked.

“Why, this one—­this one was in the artichokes.”

“Oh, then the other one is among the strawberries, by the well.”

And she began to sob so piteously that no one could hear her unmoved.

The girl Rosalie Prudent was acquitted.

REGRET

Monsieur Saval, who was called in Mantes “Father Saval,” had just risen from bed.  He was weeping.  It was a dull autumn day; the leaves were falling.  They fell slowly in the rain, like a heavier and slower rain.  M. Saval was not in good spirits.  He walked from the fireplace to the window, and from the window to the fireplace.  Life has its sombre days.  It would no longer have any but sombre days for him, for he had reached the age of sixty-two.  He is alone, an old bachelor, with nobody about him.  How sad it is to die alone, all alone, without any one who is devoted to you!