“Good evening, Zizi. Aren’t you asleep?”
His voice had a joyous intonation that produced a strange effect amid the prevailing gloom. Desiree motioned to him not to speak, pointing to her sleeping mother.
“Put down your lamp—I have something to say to you.”
Her voice, broken by emotion, impressed him; and so did her eyes, for they seemed larger than usual, and were lighted by a piercing glance that he had never seen in them.
He approached with something like awe.
“Why, what’s the matter, Bichette? Do you feel any worse?”
Desiree replied with a movement of her little pale face that she felt very ill and that she wanted to speak to him very close, very close. When the great man stood by her pillow, she laid her burning hand on the great man’s arm and whispered in his ear. She was very ill, hopelessly ill. She realized fully that she had not long to live.
“Then, father, you will be left alone with mamma. Don’t tremble like that. You knew that this thing must come, yes, that it was very near. But I want to tell you this. When I am gone, I am terribly afraid mamma won’t be strong enough to support the family just see how pale and exhausted she is.”
The actor looked at his “sainted wife,” and seemed greatly surprised to find that she did really look so badly. Then he consoled himself with the selfish remark:
“She never was very strong.”