chimney, and having lighted a fire of furze, undressed her, dried her
clothes, chafed her limbs, and wrung her streaming hair; they then
carried her upstairs, and placed her in one of the beds, on which they
had spread clean sheets, which had been warmed with one of the heated
hearth-stones, according to the custom of the peasants of that country.
They tried in vain to make her swallow a few drops of wine and vinegar
to bring her to life; but finding all their efforts unavailing, gave
way to tears and lamentations, which soon recalled us into the house.
"The lady is dead! the lady is dead! We can only weep, and send for a
priest." The boatmen mingled their cries with those of the women, and
increased their confusion. I rushed up the ladder and entered the room.
The dim twilight still showed the bed over which I bent. I touched her
forehead; it was burning hot; I could distinguish the low and regular
breathing which made the coarse brown sheet alternately rise and fall
on the chest. I bid the women be quiet, and giving some money to one of
the boatmen, ordered him to fetch a doctor, who, I was told, lived two
leagues off, in a little village on the Mont du Chat. The boatman set
off at full speed; the others, comforted by the assurance that the lady
was not dead, sat down to eat. The women went and came from the parlor
to the cellar, and from the cellar to the poultry-yard, to make
preparations for supper. I remained seated on one of the bags of Indian
corn at the foot of the bed, my hands clasped on my knees, and my eyes
fixed on the inanimate face and closed eyelids of the sufferer. Night
had closed in. One of the young girls had fastened the shutter, and
suspended a small copper lamp against the wall; its rays fell on the
sheets and on the sleeping countenance like the light of holy tapers on
a death-bed. Since then, I have thus watched, alas, by other bedsides,
but the sleepers never woke!