Hélène was about to reply, when Juliette, wishing to turn her thoughts from her grief, began to chat about the things which were occupying the gossips of Paris: “We are certainly going to have a war. I am in a nice state about it, as I have two cousins who will have to serve.”
In this style she would drop in upon them on returning from her rambles through Paris, her brain bursting with all the tittle-tattle collected in the course of the afternoon, and her long skirts whirling and rustling as she sailed through the stillness of the sick-room. It was altogether futile for her to lower her voice and assume a pitiful air; her indifference peeped through all disguise; it could be seen that she was happy, quite joyous indeed, in the possession of perfect health. Hélène was very downcast in her company, her heart rent by jealous anguish.
“Madame,” said Jeanne one evening, “why doesn’t Lucien come to play with me?”
Juliette was embarrassed for a moment, and merely answered with a smile.
“Is he ill too?” continued the child.
“No, my darling, he isn’t ill; he has gone to school.”
Then, as Hélène accompanied her into the ante-room, she wished to apologize for her prevarication.
“Oh! I would gladly bring him; I know that there’s no infection. But children get frightened with the least thing, and Lucien is such a stupid. He would just burst out sobbing when he saw your poor angel—”
“Yes, indeed; you are quite right,” interrupted Hélène, her heart ready to break with the thought of this woman’s gaiety, and her happiness in possessing a child who enjoyed robust health.
A second week had passed away. The disease was following its usual course, robbing Jeanne every hour of some of her vitality. Fearfully rapid though it was, however, it evinced no haste, but, in accomplishing the destruction of that delicate, lovable flesh, passed in turn through each foreseen phase, without skipping a single one of them. Thus the spitting of blood had ceased, and at intervals the cough disappeared. But such was the oppressive feeling which stifled the child that you could detect the ravages of the disease by the difficulty she experienced in breathing. Such weakness could not withstand so violent an attack; and the eyes of the Abbé and Monsieur Rambaud constantly moistened with tears as they heard her. Day and night under the shelter of the curtains the sound of oppressed breathing arose; the poor darling, whom the slightest shock seemed likely to kill, was yet unable to die, but lived on and on through the agony which bathed her in sweat. Her mother, whose strength was exhausted, and who could no longer bear to hear that rattle, went into the adjoining room and leaned her head against the wall.