A hard-working woman had no business with such
nerves. I knew that, and tried to annihilate them; but the more I
cut them down, the more they bled. The thing was a mere trifle,--the
fountain-basin was shallow, the water healthy,--nothing could be more
healthy than bathing,--and, at any rate, it was no affair of mine.
Yet my mind in some unhealthy mood aggravated the circumstances, and
colored everything with its own dark hue.
I could not give up my place, of course not; I was not likely to get
so good a situation anywhere else; I could not risk it; and yet the
servitude of horror under which I was held for a few weeks was almost
enough to reconcile one to starvation. Only that I was kept busy
in the shop most of the time, and had little leisure to observe the
course of affairs, or to be in Madame's society, I should have given
warning,--foolishly enough,--for there was not a tangible thing of
which I had to complain. But a shapeless suspicion which for some days
had been brooding in my mind was taking form, too dim for me to
dare to recognize it, but real enough to make me feel a miserable
fascination to the house while little Jacques still lived, a magnetic,
uncomfortable necessity for my presence, as though it were in some
sort a protection against an impending evil.
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