The stove-fitter came to say goodbye to his benefactress, who told him to fetch a cab. When he returned, the Baroness asked him to take little Atala Judici home with him and to do so there and then.
‘You can tell her’, she added, ‘that if she’s willing to be put under the guidance of Monsieur le Curé at the Madeleine, on the day she makes her first communion I’ll give her a dowry of thirty thousand francs and a good husband, some fine young man.’
‘My oldest son, Madame! He’s 22 and he adores the child.’
Just then, the Baron came downstairs. His eyes were wet with tears.
‘You’re making me leave the only creature whose love for me has been anything like yours. The child’s in tears, and I can’t leave her like this.’
‘Don’t worry, Hector. She’s going to be with a respectable family and I can answer for her behaviour.’
‘Oh, in that case I can go with you,’ said the Baron, escorting his wife to the carriage.
Hector, once more Baron d’Ervy, had put on a blue cloth frock-coat and trousers, a white waistcoat, a black cravat, and gloves.
When the Baroness had taken her seat inside the cab, Atala slipped in, gliding like an adder.
‘Oh, Madame, let me come with you and go wherever you’re going,’ she said. ‘Look, I’ll be very good and very obedient. I’ll do everything you tell me. But don’t take Père Vyder away from me. He’s my benefactor; he gives me such lovely things. I’ll be beaten!’
‘Come, Atala,’ said the Baron, ‘this is my wife and we must leave each other.’
‘That lady! As old as that!’ replied the naïve girl. ‘And she trembles like a leaf. Oh, look at her head.’
And she mockingly imitated the Baroness’s trembling.
The stove-fitter, hurrying after the little Judici girl, came to the carriage door.
‘Take her away,’ said the Baroness
The stove-fitter took Atala in his arms and forcibly carried her off to his house.
‘Thank you for this sacrifice, my dear,’ said Adeline, taking the Baron’s hand and pressing it with ecstatic joy. ‘How you’re changed! How you must have suffered! What a surprise for your daughter and your son!’
Adeline talked as lovers talk when they see each other again after a long separation, pouring out a thousand things at once.