nd voices, and before I could even turn round I heard a voice through
the glass door say, "Monsieur Paulin's aunt is very ill."

The sentence stuns me. I am standing, and some one is standing
opposite me. A draught shuts the door with a bang.

Both of us set off. It is Benoit who has come to fetch me. We hurry.
I breathe heavily. Crossing the busy factory, we meet acquaintances
who smile at me, not knowing the turn of affairs.

The night is cold and nasty, with a keen wind. The sky drips with
rain. We jump over puddles as we walk. I stare fixedly at Benoit's
square shoulders in front of me, and the dancing tails of his coat as
the wind hustles them along the nocturnal way.

Passing through the suburban quarter, the wind comes so hard between
the infrequent houses that the bushes on either side shiver and press
towards us, and seem to unfurl. Ah, we are not made for the greater
happenings!

* * * * * *

I meet first in the room the resounding glare of a wood fire and an
almost repelling heat. The odors of camphor and ether catch my throat.
People that I know are standing round the bed. They turn to me and
speak all together.

I bend down to look at Mame. She is inlaid upon the whiteness of the
bed, which is motionless as marble. Her face is sunk in the cavity of
the pillow. Her eyes are half closed and do not move; her skin has
darkened. Each breath hums in her throat, and beyond that slight
stirring of larynx and lips her little frail body moves no more than a
doll's. She has not got her cap on and her gray hair is unraveled on
her head like flocks of dust.

Several voices at once explain to me that it is "double congestion, and
her heart as well." She was attacked by a dizziness, by prolonged and
terrible shivering. She wandered, mentioned me, then suddenly
collapsed. The doctor has no hope but is coming back. The Reverend
Father Piot was here at five.

Silence hovers. A woman puts a log in the fire, in the center of the
dazzling cluster of snarling flames, whose light throws the room into
total agitation.

* * * * * *

For a long time I look upon that face, where ugliness and goodness are
mingled in such a heartrending way. My eyes seek those already almost
shut, whose light is hardening. Something of darkness, an internal
shadow which is of herself, overspreads and disfigures her. One may
see now how outworn sh