, write full notes of this deposition.--Go on, my good woman;
tell us your name and your business." Camusot made the woman take the
oath, and then he dictated the document.

While these formalities were being carried out, he was scrutinizing the
postmark, which showed the hours of posting and delivery, as well at the
date of the day. And this letter, left for Lucien the day after Esther's
death, had beyond a doubt been written and posted on the day of the
catastrophe. Monsieur Camusot's amazement may therefore be imagined when
he read this letter written and signed by her whom the law believed to
have been the victim of a crime:--

"_Esther to Lucien_.

"MONDAY, May 13th, 1830.

"My last day; ten in the morning.

"MY LUCIEN,--I have not an hour to live. At eleven o'clock I shall
be dead, and I shall die without a pang. I have paid fifty
thousand francs for a neat little black currant, containing a
poison that will kill me with the swiftness of lightning. And so,
my darling, you may tell yourself, 'My little Esther had no
suffering.'--and yet I shall suffer in writing these pages.

"The monster who has paid so dear for me, knowing that the day
when I should know myself to be his would have no morrow--Nucingen
has just left me, as drunk as a bear with his skin full of wind.
For the first and last time in my life I have had the opportunity
of comparing my old trade as a street hussy with the life of true
love, of placing the tenderness which unfolds in the infinite
above the horrors of a duty which longs to destroy itself and
leave no room even for a kiss. Only such loathing could make death
delightful.

"I have taken a bath; I should have liked to send for the father
confessor of the convent where I was baptized, to have confessed
and washed my soul. But I have had enough of prostitution; it
would be profaning a sacrament; and besides, I feel myself
cleansed in the waters of sincere repentance. God must do what He
will with me.

"But enough of all this maudlin; for you I want to be your Esther
to the last moment, not to bore you with my death, or the future,
or God, who is good, and who would not be good if He were to
torture me in the next world when I have endured so much misery in
this.

"I have before me your beautiful portrait, painted by Madame de
Mirbel. That sheet of ivory used