"No one can despise them as much as they despise themselves. Among some of them, whose repentance is sincere, this original stain of vice remains indelible in their eyes, even when they find themselves in a better situation; others become insane, so much does the sense of their former aberration remain fixed and implacable. I should not be surprised if the profound sorrow of the Goualeuse proceeds from some such cause." "If this should be so, what torture for her! a remorse which nothing can soothe!" "Happily, madame, for the honor of the human race, this remorse occurs oftener than is supposed; avenging conscience never completely sleeps, or rather, strange thing, sometimes one would say that the spirit watches while the body sleeps. It is an observation that I made only this night again in reference to my _protegee_. Very, often, when the prisoners are asleep, I make the rounds of the sleeping apartments. Your ladyship cannot imagine how much the physiognomies of these women differ in expression while they sleep. A great number of them, whom I had seen during the day careless, bold, brazen, impudent, seemed completely to have changed when sleep had deprived their features of all the audacity of wickedness; for vice, alas! has its pride. Oh, what sorrowful revelations on these countenances, then dejected, melancholy, and sad! What involuntary starts! What mournful sighs torn from them by a dream, doubtless impressed with an inexorable reality! I spoke to you just now, madame, of this girl called La Louve. About fifteen days ago she insulted me brutally before all the prisoners. I shrugged my shoulders; my indifference but exasperated her. Then she thought to wound me by uttering something disgraceful concerning my mother, whom she had often seen here on a visit to me. Ah, how horrid! I acknowledge, stupid as this attack was, she hurt me. La Louve saw it, and triumphed. That night I went to make an inspection in the sleeping apartment; I reached the bed of La Louve, who was to be put in the cell next morning; I was struck with the sweetness of her face, compared with the hard and insolent expression which was habitual to her; her features seemed supplicating, full of sadness and contrition; her lips were half-open, her breathing oppressed; finally, a thing which appeared to me incredible, for I thought it impossible, tears--tears fell from her eyes. I looked at her in silence for some moments, when I heard her pronounce these words, 'Pardon! pardon her, mother!' I listened more attentively, but all that I could hear was my name, Madame Armand, pronounced with a sigh." "She repented, during her sleep, of having abused your mother?" "I thought so, and it made me less severe." "And the next day, did she express any regret for her past conduct?" "None; she showed herself as wild as ever." "But, madame, you must need great courage, much strength of mind, not to recoil before the unpleasantness of a task which brings such rare returns!"