n,
Madame. I believe he is hiding.' What better could she say?"

Madame Cornouiller heard her distrustfully; she suspected her of
misleading, of removing Putois from inquiry, for fear of losing him or
making him ask more. And she thought her too selfish. "Many judgments
accepted by the world that history has sanctioned are as well founded as
that."--"That is true," said Pauline.--"What is true?" asked Zoe, half
asleep.--"That the judgments of history are often false. I remember,
papa, that you said one day: 'Madame Roland was very ingenuous to
appeal to the impartiality of posterity, and not perceive that, if her
contemporaries were ill-natured monkeys, their posterity would be also
composed of ill-natured monkeys.'"--"Pauline," said Mademoiselle Zoe
severely, "what connection is there between the story of Putois and this
that you are telling us?"--"A very great one, my aunt."--"I do not grasp
it."--Monsieur Bergeret, who was not opposed to digressions, answered
his daughter: "If all injustices were finally redressed in the world,
one would never have imagined another for these adjustments. How do you
expect posterity to pass righteous judgment on the dead? How question
them in the shades to which they have taken flight? As soon as we are
able to be just to them we forget them. But can one ever be just? And
what is justice? Madame Cornouiller, at least, was finally obliged to
recognize that my mother had not deceived her and that Putois was not to
be found. However, she did not give up trying to find him. She asked all
her relatives, friends, neighbors, servants, and tradesmen if they knew
Putois, Only two or three answered that they had never heard of him. For
the most part they believed they had seen him. 'I have heard that name,'
said the cook, 'but I cannot recall his face.'--'Putois! I must know
him,' said the street-sweeper, scratching his ear. 'But I cannot tell
you who it is.' The most precise description came from Monsieur Blaise,
receiver of taxes, who said that he had employed Putois to cut wood in
his yard, from the 19th to the 28d of October, the year of the comet.
One morning, Madame Cornouiller, out of breath, dropped into my father's
office. 'I have seen Putois. Ah! I have seen him.'--'You believe
it?'--'I am sure. He was passing close by Monsieur Tenchant's wall. Then
he turned into the Rue des Abbesses, walking quickly. I lost him.'--'Was
it really he?'--'Without a doubt. A man of fifty, thin, bent, the