ve!

At last the old lady dropped on her knees in the snow, between two
crosses, one of which bore the date of the 9th and the other of the 10th
of November. All that remained of Germinie should be almost in that
spot. That ill-defined space was her ill-defined grave. To pray over her
body it was necessary to pray at random between two dates,--as if the
poor girl's destiny had decreed that there should be no more room on
earth for her body than for her heart!

NOTES

[1] _Canon_ is the French word for cannon; it is also used in
vulgar parlance to mean a glass of wine drunk at the bar.

[2] _Battre les murailles_--to beat the walls--has a slang
meaning: to be so drunk that you can't see, or can't lie down without
holding on.

[3] Literally, _red bowels_--common slang for hard drinkers.

[4] _Cuir_ is an expression used to denote the error in
speaking, which consists--in French--in pronouncing a _t_ for an _s_,
and vice versa at the end of words which are joined in pronunciation to
the next word: _e.g., il etai-z-a la campagne_ for _il etait a la
campagne_.

[5] In the slang vocabulary, to _console_ one's coffee means to
add brandy to it.

[6] A _negresse_ is a bottle of red wine, and, as applied to
that article, _morte_ (dead) means empty.

List of Illustrations

GERMINIE LACERTEUX

PAGE

GERMINIE AND JUPILLON VISIT THEIR CHILD _Fronts._

JUPILLON AND GERMINIE AT THE FORTIFICATIONS 116

GERMINIE BRINGS MONEY FOR A SUBSTITUTE 204

GERMINIE TEMPTED TO MURDER 308

GERMINIE AT LARIBOISIERE 356

End of Project Gutenberg's Germinie Lacerteux, by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

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