And then you know the saying, 'A nurse's child is the child of
sacrifice!'"
"Yes, she told me she had heard of it," replied Celeste, "but she begged
me not to mention it to madame, as such things always have a bad effect.
The worst is that if her child's dead madame's little one isn't much
better off."
At this La Couteau pricked up her ears. "Ah! so things are not
satisfactory?"
"No, indeed. It isn't on account of her milk; that's good enough, and she
has plenty of it. Only you never saw such a creature--such a temper!
always brutal and insolent, banging the doors and talking of smashing
everything at the slightest word. And besides, she drinks like a pig--as
no woman ought to drink."
La Couteau's pale eyes sparkled with gayety, and she briskly nodded her
head as if to say that she knew all this and had been expecting it. In
that part of Normandy, in and around Rougemont, all the women drank more
or less, and the girls even carried little bottles of brandy to school
with them in their baskets. Marie Lebleu, however, was a woman of the
kind that one picks up under the table, and, indeed, it might be said
that since the birth of her last child she had never been quite sober.
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