Germinie Lacerteux Part 22

Mademoiselle began to ascend the path by these crosses, spelling out the dates and searching for the names with her wretched eyes. She reached the crosses of the 8th of November: that was the day before her maid's death, and Germinie should be close by. There were five crosses of the 9th of November, five crosses huddled close together: Germinie was not in the crush. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil went a little farther on, to the crosses of the 10th, then to those of the 11th, then to those of the 12th. She returned to the 8th, and looked carefully around in all directions: there was nothing, absolutely nothing,--Germinie had been buried without a cross! Not even a bit of wood had been placed in the ground by which to identify her grave!

At last the old lady dropped on her knees in the snow, between two crosses, one of which bore the date of the 9th and the other of the 10th of November. All that remained of Germinie should be almost in that spot. That ill-defined s.p.a.ce was her ill-defined grave. To pray over her body it was necessary to pray at random between two dates,--as if the poor girl's destiny had decreed that there should be no more room on earth for her body than for her heart!

NOTES

[1] _Canon_ is the French word for cannon; it is also used in vulgar parlance to mean a gla.s.s of wine drunk at the bar.

[2] _Battre les murailles_--to beat the walls--has a slang meaning: to be so drunk that you can't see, or can't lie down without holding on.

[3] Literally, _red bowels_--common slang for hard drinkers.

[4] _Cuir_ is an expression used to denote the error in speaking, which consists--in French--in p.r.o.nouncing a _t_ for an _s_, and vice versa at the end of words which are joined in p.r.o.nunciation to the next word: _e.g., il etai-z-a la campagne_ for _il etait a la campagne_.

[5] In the slang vocabulary, to _console_ one's coffee means to add brandy to it.

[6] A _negresse_ is a bottle of red wine, and, as applied to that article, _morte_ (dead) means empty.