asted, already sufficiently worn out for the
grave. There had been strange workings of her nerves during her long
years of chastity. A dissolute life would perhaps have wrecked her less
than the slow hidden ravages of unsatisfied fever which had modified her
organism.

Sometimes, even now, this moribund, pale old woman, who seemed to have
no blood left in her, was seized with nervous fits like electric shocks,
which galvanised her, and for an hour brought her atrocious intensity of
life. She would lie on her bed rigid, with her eyes open; then hiccoughs
would come upon her and she would writhe and struggle, acquiring the
frightful strength of those hysterical madwomen whom one has to tie down
in order to prevent them from breaking their heads against a wall.
This return to former vigour, these sudden attacks, gave her a terrible
shock. When she came to again, she would stagger about with such a
scared, stupefied look, that the gossips of the Faubourg used to say:
"She's been drinking, the crazy old thing!"

Little Silvere's childish smile was for her the last pale ray which
brought some warmth to her frozen limbs. Weary of solitude, and
frightened at the thought of dying alone in one of her fits, she had
asked to have the child. With the little fellow running about near
her, she felt secure against death. Without relinquishing her habits of
taciturnity, or seeking to render her automatic movements more supple,
she conceived inexpressible affection for him. Stiff and speechless, she
would watch him playing for hours together, listening with delight to
the intolerable noise with which he filled the old hovel. That tomb
had resounded with uproar ever since Silvere had been running about it,
bestriding broomsticks, knocking up against the doors, and shouting and
crying. He brought Adelaide back to the world, as it were; she looked
after him with the most adorable awkwardness; she who, in her youth,
had neglected the duties of a mother, now felt the divine pleasures
of maternity in washing his face, dressing him, and watching over his
sickly life. It was a reawakening of love, a last soothing passion which
heaven had granted to this woman who had been so ravaged by the want of
some one to love; the touching agony of a heart that had lived amidst
the most acute desires, and which was now dying full of love for a
child.

She was already too far gone to pour forth the babble of good plump
grandmothers; she adored the child i