y back in an armchair
gasping for breath; the baron ran hither and thither, bringing all
manner of things and completely losing his head; Julien walked up and
down looking very troubled, but really feeling quite calm, and the Widow
Dentu, whom nothing could surprise or startle, stood at the foot of the
bed with an expression suited to the occasion on her face.

Nurse, mid-wife and watcher of the dead, equally ready to welcome the
new-born infant, to receive its first cry, to immerse it in its first
bath and to wrap it in its first covering, or to hear the last word, the
last death-rattle, the last moan of the dying, to clothe them in their
last garment, to sponge their wasted bodies, to draw the sheet about
their still faces, the Widow Dentu had become utterly indifferent to any
of the chances accompanying a birth or a death.

Every now and then Jeanne gave a low moan. For two hours it seemed as if
the child would not be born yet, after all; but about daybreak the
pains recommenced and soon became almost intolerable. As the involuntary
cries of anguish burst through her clenched teeth, Jeanne thought of
Rosalie who had hardly even moaned, and whose bastard child had been
born without any of the torture such as she was suffering. In her
wretched, troubled mind she drew comparisons between her maid and
herself, and she cursed God Whom, until now, she had believed just. She
thought in angry astonishment of how fate favors the wicked, and of the
unpardonable lies of those who hold forth inducements to be upright and
good.

Sometimes the agony was so great that she could think of nothing else,
her suffering absorbing all her strength, her reason, her consciousness.
In the intervals of relief her eyes were fixed on Julien, and then she
was filled with a mental anguish as she thought of the day her maid had
fallen at the foot of this very bed with her new-born child--the brother
of the infant that was now causing her such terrible pain. She
remembered perfectly every gesture, every look, every word of her
husband as he stood beside the maid, and now she could see in his
movements the same _ennui_, the same indifference for her suffering as
he had felt for Rosalie's; it was the selfish carelessness of a man whom
the idea of paternity irritates.

She was seized by an excruciating pain, a spasm so agonizing that she
thought, "I am going to die! I am dying!" And her soul was filled with a
furious hatred; she felt she must curs