It was a very great trial to Germinie--a trial that she sought,
however--to have to pass through a street where there was a school for
young girls, when she went out before dinner to buy an evening paper for
mademoiselle. She often happened to be at the door when the school was
dismissed; she tried to run away--and stood still.
At first there would be a sound like that made by a swarm of bees, a
buzzing and humming, one of those great outbursts of childish joy that
wake the echoes in the streets of Paris. From the dark and narrow
passageway leading to the schoolroom the children would rush forth as if
escaping from an open cage, and run about and frolic in the sunlight.
They would push and jostle one another, and toss their empty baskets in
the air. Then some would call to one another and form little groups;
tiny hands would go forth to meet other tiny hands; friends would take
one another by the arm or put their arms around one another's waists or
necks, and walk along nibbling at the same tart. Soon the whole band
would be in motion, walking slowly up the filthy street with loitering
step. The larger ones, ten years old at most, would stop and talk, like
little women, at the _portes cocheres_. Others would stop to drink from
their luncheon bottles. The smaller ones would amuse themselves by
dipping the soles of their shoes in the gutter. And there were some who
made a headdress of a cabbage leaf picked up from the ground,--a green
cap sent by the good God, beneath which the fresh young face smiled
brightly.
Germinie would gaze at them all and walk along with them; she would go
in among them in order to feel the rustling of their aprons. She could
not take her eyes off the little arms under which the school satchels
leaped about, the little pea-green dresses, the little black leggings,
the little legs in the little woolen stockings. In her eyes there was a
sort of divine light about all those little flaxen heads, with the soft
hair of the child Jesus. A little stray lock upon a little neck, a bit
of baby flesh above a chemise or at the end of a sleeve--at times she
saw nothing but that; it was to her all the sunshine of the street--and
the sky!
Gradually the troop dwindled away. Each street took some children away
to neighboring streets. The school dispersed along the road. The gaiety
of all the tiny footsteps died away little by little. The little dresses
disappeared one by one. Germinie followed the last, she attached herself
to those who went the farthest.
On one occasion, as she was walking along thus, devouring with her eyes
the memory of her daughter, she was suddenly seized with a frenzied
longing to embrace something; she rushed at one of the little girls and
grasped her arm just as a kidnapper of children would do. "Mamma!
mamma!" the little one cried, and wept as she pulled her arm away.
Germinie fled.