The two girls, who were following, had lost their wits, and did not know. Their father's room was a small one upstairs, partitioned off from the grain-loft, and it was almost out of the question to carry him up there. Downstairs there was the kitchen, and the large double-bedded room which he had given up to them. In the kitchen it was as dark as pitch. With their arms stiff with exertion, the young man and the old woman waited, not daring to take another step forward for fear of knocking against some piece of furniture.
"Come, something must be settled, anyhow."
Françoise at last lit a candle, and just then the wife of the rural constable, Madame Bécu came in; she had smelt disaster in the air, or had been warned by that occult agency which is wont to carry news through a village in no time.
"Why! what's amiss with the poor fellow?" said she. "Ah! I see; his blood has turned. Quick! Set him on a chair."
But Madame Frimat was of a different opinion. The idea of seating a man who could not hold himself upright! The thing to do was to stretch him on one of his daughters' beds. The discussion was growing keen, when Fanny came in with Nénesse. She had heard about it while buying some vermicelli at Macqueron's, and had come to see what there was to be seen; being at the same time somewhat affected on her cousins' account.
"Perhaps," she declared, "it's best to sit him down, so that the blood may run back."
And so Mouche was huddled on to a chair near the table, on which the candle was burning. His chin drooped upon his chest, his arms and legs hung limp. His left eye had been drawn open by the displacement of that side of his face, and one corner of his twisted mouth wheezed more than the other. Silence fell. Death was taking possession of the damp room, with its floor of trodden earth, its stained walls, and its large gloomy fireplace.
Jean still waited in perplexity, while the two girls and the three women dangled round the old fellow, looking at him.
"Hadn't I better go and fetch the doctor?" the young man ventured to ask.
Madame Bécu nodded her head, but no one else made any reply. If it were to be nothing after all, why incur the expense of a visit? And if it were really the end, what good could the doctor do?