'Let me do it! I am used to doing it for my uncle. There! Are you comfortable now?'
But Madame Chanteau irritably exclaimed that they were shaking her to pieces. She seemed unable to make the slightest movement without being almost suffocated, and for a moment, indeed, she lay panting, with her face quite livid. Lazare had stepped behind the bed-curtains to conceal his expression of despair; still, he remained present while Pauline rubbed her aunt's legs with the tincture of digitalis. At first he turned his head aside, but some fascination ever made his eyes return to those swollen limbs, those inert masses of pale flesh, the sight of which made him almost choke with agony. When his cousin saw how utterly upset he was she thought it safer to send him out of the room. She went up to him, and, as Madame Chanteau dozed off, tired out by the mere changing of her position, she whispered to him softly:
'You would do better to go away.'
For a moment or two he resisted; his tears blinded him, Then he yielded and went down, ashamed, and sobbing:
'Oh, God! God! I cannot endure it! I cannot endure it!'
When the sick woman again awoke, she did not at first notice her son's absence. She seemed to be in a state of stupor, and as if egotistically seeking to make sure that she was really alive. Pauline's presence alone appeared to disquiet her, although the girl sat far away and neither spoke nor moved. As her aunt bent forward, however, she felt that she must just say a word to let her know why Lazare was absent.
'It is I. Don't worry. Lazare has gone to Verchemont, where he has to see the carpenter.'
'All right,' Madame Chanteau murmured.
'You are not so ill that he should neglect his business, are you?'
'Oh! certainly not.'