They arrived opposite a species of large pavilion, on the front of which was the inscription, "Art Pottery of the Golfe Juan," and the carriage, driving up the sweep, stopped before the door. Forestier wanted to buy a couple of vases for his study. As he felt unequal to getting out of the carriage, specimens were brought out to him one after the other. He was a long time in making a choice, and consulted his wife and Duroy.
"You know," he said, "it is for the cabinet at the end of the study. Sitting in my chair, I have it before my eyes all the time. I want an antique form, a Greek outline." He examined the specimens, had others brought, and then turned again to the first ones. At length he made up his mind, and having paid, insisted upon the articles being sent on at once. "I shall be going back to Paris in a few days," he said.
They drove home, but as they skirted the bay a rush of cold air from one of the valleys suddenly met them, and the invalid began to cough. It was nothing at first, but it augmented and became an unbroken fit of coughing, and then a kind of gasping hiccough.
Forestier was choking, and every time he tried to draw breath the cough seemed to rend his chest. Nothing would soothe or check it. He had to be borne from the carriage to his room, and Duroy, who supported his legs, felt the jerking of his feet at each convulsion of his lungs. The warmth of the bed did not check the attack, which lasted till midnight, when, at length, narcotics lulled its deadly spasm. The sick man remained till morning sitting up in his bed, with his eyes open.
The first words he uttered were to ask for the barber, for he insisted on being shaved every morning. He got up for this operation, but had to be helped back into bed at once, and his breathing grew so short, so hard, and so difficult, that Madame Forestier, in alarm, had Duroy, who had just turned in, roused up again in order to beg him to go for the doctor.
He came back almost immediately with Dr. Gavaut, who prescribed a soothing drink and gave some advice; but when the journalist saw him to the door, in order to ask his real opinion, he said, "It is the end. He will be dead to-morrow morning. Break it to his poor wife, and send for a priest. I, for my part, can do nothing more. I am, however, entirely at your service."
Duroy sent for Madame Forestier. "He is dying," said he. "The doctor advises a priest being sent for. What would you like done?"
She hesitated for some time, and then, in slow tones, as though she had calculated everything, replied, "Yes, that will be best—in many respects. I will break it to him—tell him the vicar wants to see him, or something or other; I really don't know what. You would be very kind if you would go and find a priest for me and pick one out. Choose one who won't raise too many difficulties over the business. One who will be satisfied with confession, and will let us off with the rest of it all."
The young fellow returned with a complaisant old ecclesiastic, who accommodated himself to the state of affairs. As soon as he had gone into the dying man's room, Madame Forestier came out of it, and sat down with Duroy in the one adjoining.
"It has quite upset him," said she. "When I spoke to him about a priest his face assumed a frightful expression as if he had felt the breath—the breath of—you know. He understood that it was all over at last, and that his hours were numbered." She was very pale as she continued, "I shall never forget the expression of his face. He certainly saw death face to face at that moment. He saw him."