Practical assistance not one could give, this they all
knew, and they had long since exhausted their stock of condolence over
previous discussions of their grievances. They were in something the
same position as an elderly couple who have nothing left to say to
each other. The routine of existence kept them in contact, but they
were parts of a mechanism which wanted oil. There was not one of them
but would have passed a blind man begging in the street, not one that
felt moved to pity by a tale of misfortune, not one who did not see in
death the solution of the all-absorbing problem of misery which left
them cold to the most terrible anguish in others.
The happiest of these hapless beings was certainly Mme. Vauquer, who
reigned supreme over this hospital supported by voluntary
contributions. For her, the little garden, which silence, and cold,
and rain, and drought combined to make as dreary as an Asian _steppe_,
was a pleasant shaded nook; the gaunt yellow house, the musty odors of
a back shop had charms for her, and for her alone. Those cells
belonged to her. She fed those convicts condemned to penal servitude
for life, and her authority was recognized among them.
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