Juana by Honoré de Balzac (read me a book .txt) 📕

the thing rest there."

The doctor performed the autopsy, and dictated his report to the sheriff. Suddenly he stopped, and hastily entered the next room.

"Madame--" he said.

Juana, who had removed her bloody gown, came towards him.

"It was you," he whispered, stooping to her ear, "who killed your husband."

"Yes, monsieur," she replied.

The doctor returned and continued his dictation as follows,--

"And, from the above assemblage of facts, it appears evident that the said Diard killed himself voluntarily and by his own hand."

"Have you finished?" he said to the sheriff after a pause.

"Yes," replied the writer.

The doctor signed the report. Juana, who had followed him into the room, gave him one glance, repressing with difficulty the tears which for an instant rose into her eyes and moistened them.

"Messieurs," she said to the public prosecutor and the judge, "I am a stranger here, and a Spaniard. I am ignorant of the laws, and I know no one in Bordeaux. I ask of you one kindness: enable me to obtain a passport for Spain."

"One moment!" cried the examining judge. "Madame, what has become of the money stolen from the Marquis de Montefiore?"

"Monsieur Diard," she replied, "said something to me vaguely about a heap of stones, under which he must have hidden it."

"Where?"

"In the street."

The two magistrates looked at each other. Juana made a noble gesture and motioned to the doctor.

"Monsieur," she said in his ear, "can I be suspected of some infamous action? I! The pile of stones must be close to the wall of my garden. Go yourself, I implore you. Look, search, find that money."

The doctor went out, taking with him the examining judge, and together they found Montefiore's treasure.

Within two days Juana had sold her cross to pay the costs of a journey. On her way with her two children to take the diligence which would carry her to the frontiers of Spain, she heard herself being called in the street. Her dying mother was being carried to a hospital, and through the curtains of her litter she had seen her daughter. Juana made the bearers enter a porte-cochere that was near them, and there the last interview between the mother and the daughter took place. Though the two spoke to each other in a low voice, Juan heard these parting words,--

"Mother, die in peace; I have suffered for you all."
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Publication Date: 07-21-2010

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