It was a sorrow entirely corporeal, a brutal sorrow that arose from the depths of her being like a compact and heavy thing, crushing her with an insupportable weight. She would have liked to sink to the ground as if beneath an enormous burden, never to arise again; she would have liked to lose consciousness, to become an inert mass, to expire.
"Tell me, tell me, what can I do? What can I do to ease you?" stammered George, pressing her hand, prey to a mad terror.
Was not this sadness perhaps the chrysalis of the illness?
For a few seconds, she remained with her eyes fixed and rather haggard. She shivered beneath the shock caused by the clamor raised in the vicinity by a procession which saluted the church on leaving.
"Take me away somewhere. Perhaps there is a hotel at Casalbordino. Where can Colas be?"
George looked anxiously around, in the hope of discovering the old man. He said:
"Perhaps he is looking for us in the crowd; or perhaps he has gone to Casalbordino, thinking he will find us there."
"Let us go alone, then. Down below, yonder, I see some carriages."
"Let us go, if you like. But lean on me."
They directed their steps towards the highroad, which lay like a long white ribbon on the other side of the esplanade. It seemed as if the tumult followed them. The trumpet of a mountebank sent after them its piercing notes. The always even cadence of the hymn, persistently dominated all other sounds by its exasperating continuity.