"I shall never be tired!" she said--"If I could be tired I should
sleep,--but I never sleep! I am looking for HIM, you know!--it was
at the fair I lost him--you remember the great fair? And when I find
him I shall kill him! It is quite easy to kill--you take a sharp
glittering thing, so!" and she snatched up a knife that lay on
Martine's counter--"And you plunge it--so!" and she struck it down
with singular fury through the breast of one of the "dead birds"
which were Martine's stock-in-trade. Then she threw the knife on the
ground--rubbed her hands together, tossed her head, and laughed
again--"That is how I shall do it when I meet him!"
Martine said nothing. She simply removed the one stabbed bird from
among the others, and setting it aside, picked up the knife from the
ground and went on knitting as calmly as ever.
"I am going to see the Archbishop," proceeded Marguerite, tossing
back her dishevelled locks and making one or two fantastic dance-
steps as she spoke--"The great Archbishop of this wonderful city of
Rouen! I want to ask him how it happened that God made men. It was a
mistake which He must be sorry for! The Archbishop knows
everything;--he will tell me about it. Ah!--what a beautiful mistake
is the Archbishop himself!--and how soon women find it out! Bon
jour, Martine!"
"Bon jour, Marguerite!" responded Martine quietly.
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