But Celeste was rattling on again, saying: "You remember Madame Bourdieu
whom you used to know in the Rue de Miromesnil; she died very near our
village on some property where she went to live when she gave up
business, a good many years ago. She was luckier than her colleague La
Rouche, who was far too good-natured with people. You must have read
about her case in the newspapers, she was sent to prison with a medical
man named Sarraille."
"La Rouche! Sarraille!" Yes, Mathieu had certainly read the trial of
those two social pests, who were fated to meet at last in their work of
iniquity. And what an echo did those names awaken in the past: Valerie
Morange! Reine Morange! Already in the factory yard Mathieu had fancied
that he could see the shadow of Morange gliding past him--the punctual,
timid, soft-hearted accountant, whom misfortune and insanity had carried
off into the darkness. And suddenly the unhappy man here again appeared
to Mathieu, like a wandering phantom, the restless victim of all the
imbecile ambition, all the desperate craving for pleasure which animated
the period; a poor, weak, mediocre being, so cruelly punished for the
crimes of others, that he was doubtless unable to sleep in the tomb into
which he had flung himself, bleeding, with broken limbs.
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