CHAPTER 19Whatever had been my trials until that time, at least I was inpossession of my innocence. Merely the victim of a few monsters'attempts, I was still able to consider myself more or less in thecategory of an honest girl. The fact was I had never been trulysoiled save by a r**e operated five years earlier, and its traceshad healed... a r**e consummated at an instant when my numbed statehad not even left me the faculty of sensation. Other than that,what was there with which I could reproach myself? Nothing, oh!nothing, doubtless; and my heart was chaste, I was overweeninglyproud of it, my presumption was to be punished; the outragesawaiting me were to be such that in a short while it would nolonger be possible, however slight had been my participation, forme to form the same comforti
