now, at the age of 104 years, she lived here as if forgotten by the
world, a quiet madwoman with an ossified brain, with whom insanity
might remain stationary for an indefinite length of time without
causing death. Old age had come, however, and had gradually atrophied
her muscles. Her flesh was as if eaten away by age. The skin only
remained on her bones, so that she had to be carried from her chair to
her bed, for it had become impossible for her to walk or even to move.
And yet she held herself erect against the back of her chair, a
yellow, dried-up skeleton--like an ancient tree of which the bark only
remains--with only her eyes still living in her thin, long visage, in
which the wrinkles had been, so to say, worn away. She was looking
fixedly at Charles.

Clotilde approached her a little tremblingly.

"Aunt Dide, it is we; we have come to see you. Don't you know me,
then? Your little girl who comes sometimes to kiss you."

But the madwoman did not seem to hear. Her eyes remained fixed upon
the boy, who was finishing cutting out a picture--a purple king in a
golden mantle.

"Come, mamma," said Macquart, "don't pretend to be stupid. You may
very well look at us. Here is a gentleman, a grandson of yours, who
has come from Paris expressly to see you."

At this voice Aunt Dide at last turned her head. Her clear,
expressionless eyes wandered slowly from one to another, then rested
again on Charles with the same fixed look as before.