"What Claudine proposed to me," continued the sailor, "was villainous;
and I am an honest man. But she kneaded me to her will as easily as a
baker kneads dough. She turned my heart topsy-turvy: she made me see
white as snow that which was really as black as ink. How I loved her!
She proved to me that we were wronging no one, that we were making
little Jacques's fortune, and I was silenced. At evening we arrived at
some village; and the coachman, stopping the carriage before an inn,
told us we were to sleep there. We entered, and who do you think we saw?
That scamp, Germain, with a nurse carrying a child dressed so exactly
like the one we had that I was startled. They had journeyed there, like
ourselves, in one of the count's carriages. A suspicion crossed my mind.
How could I be sure that Claudine had not invented the second story
to pacify me? She was certainly capable of it. I was enraged. I had
consented to the one wickedness, but not to the other. I resolved not
to lose sight of the little bastard, swearing that they shouldn't change
it; so I kept him all the evening on my knees, and to be all the more
sure, I tied my handkerchief about his waist.
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