As a matter of fact she was
practically going through the process of slow starvation.
She had never, even in her healthily hungry days, been able to eat the
abominable Spanish dishes--meat floating in oil, and other things which
she classed together under the heading of _cochonneries_.
She generally lived on fruit, a little black bread, coffee, and
_absinthe_.
Emile would try and bully her into eating more, and occasionally
essayed his talents as a _chef_, and cooked weird looking things in his
rooms over a vilely smelling English oil stove, but the Jewess in
Arithelli found him wanting in the "divers washings" she required of
the saucepans, and they generally ended these Bohemian repasts with a
quarrel.
She went about her work in a half-stupefied state, as one who is
perpetually in a trance. She was past fear now. Nothing mattered.
Midnight rides on a mule up in the mountains, meetings in the low
quarter of the town, the danger of being arrested while carrying a
despatch.
"_C'est ainsi que la vie_!" Emile's motto had become also her own.
Pages:
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83