“‘Well, monsieur, what are we waiting
for?’
“But he paid no attention to anything but the
woman, and looking at her sharply and suspiciously
through his gold-rimmed spectacles, he said to her
in a hard voice:
“‘Your names and surnames?’
“‘Juliette Randal, or as I am generally
called, Jujutte Pipehead.’
“‘So you will swear you were not—’
“She interrupted him eagerly:
“’I swear it, monsieur, and I know that
my little man had nothing to do with it either.
He was only keeping a look-out while the others collared
the swag. ... I will swear that I can account
for every moment of my time that night. Roquin
was drunk, and told me everything.... They got
five thousand francs from Daddy Zacharias, and of course
Roquin had his share, but he did not work with his
partners. It was Minon Menilmuche, whom they
call Drink-without-Thirst, who held the gardener’s
hands, and who bled him with a blow from his knife.’
“The Commissary let her run on, and when she
had finished, he questioned me, as if I had belonged
to Jujutte’s band.
“‘Your name, Christian name, and profession?’
“’Marquis Sulpice de Laurier, living on
my own private income, at 24, Rue de Galilee.’
“’De Laurier? Oh, very well....
Excuse me, monsieur, but at Madame de Lauriere’s
request, I declare formally before these gentlemen,
who will be able to give evidence, that the girl Juliette
Randal, whom they call Jujutte Tete-de-Pipe,
is your mistress. You are at liberty to go, Monsieur
le Marquis, and you, girl Randal answer my questions.’
“Thus, by the most extraordinary chance, our
divorce suit created a sensation which I had certainly
never foreseen. I was obliged to appear in the
Assize Court as a witness in the celebrated case of
those burglars, when three of them were condemned
to death, and to undergo the questioning of the idiotic
Presiding Judge, who tried by all means in his power
to make me acknowledge that I was Jujutte Tete-de-Pipe’s
regular lover; and in consequence, ever since then
I have passed as an ardent seeker after novel sensations,
and a man who wallows in the lowest depths of the
Parisian dunghill.
“I cannot say that this unjust reputation has
brought me any pleasant love affairs. Women are
so perverse, so absurd, and so curious!”
Monsieur de Champdelin had no reason to complain of
his lot as a married man; nor could he accuse destiny
of having played him in a bad turn, as it does so
many others, for it would have been difficult to find
a more desirable, merrier, prettier little woman,
or one who was easier to amuse and to guide than his
wife. To see the large, limpid eyes which illuminated
her fair, girlish face, one would think that her mother
must have spent whole nights before her birth, in
looking dreamily at the stars, and so had become,
as it were, impregnated with their magic brightness.
And one did not know which to prefer—her
bright, silky hair, or her slightly restrousse
nose, with its vibrating nostrils, her red lips, which
looked as alluring as a ripe peach, her beautiful
shoulders, her delicate ears, which resembled mother-of-pearl,
or her slim waist and rounded figure, which would
have delighted and tempted a sculptor.
