* * * * * *

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