Once when she awoke she saw Julien, alone, standing beside her; and
suddenly it all came back to her, as if the curtain which hid her past
life had been raised.
She felt a horrible pain in her heart, and wanted to escape once more.
She threw back the coverlets, jumped to the floor and fell down, her
limbs being too weak to support her.
Julien sprang toward her, and she began to scream for him not to touch
her. She writhed and rolled on the floor. The door opened. Aunt Lison
came running in with Widow Dentu, then the baron, and finally little
mother, puffing and distracted.
They put her back into bed, and she immediately closed her eyes, so as
to escape talking and be able to think quietly.
Her mother and aunt watched over her anxiously, saying: "Do you hear
us now, Jeanne, my little Jeanne?"
She pretended to be deaf, not to hear them, and did not answer. Night
came on and the nurse took up her position beside the bed. She did not
sleep; she kept trying to think of things that had escaped her memory
as though there were holes in it, great white empty places where
events had not been noted down.
Little by little she began to recall the facts, and she pondered over
them steadily.
Little mother, Aunt Lison, the baron had come, so she must have been
very ill. But Julien? What had he said? Did her parents know? And
Rosalie, where was she? And what should she do? What should she do? An
idea came to her--she would return to Rouen and live with father and
little mother as in old days. She would be a widow; that's all.
Then she waited, listening to what was being said around her,
understanding everything without letting them see it, rejoiced at her
returning reason, patient and crafty.
That evening, at last, she found herself alone with the baroness and
called to her in a low tone: "Little Mother!" Her own voice astonished
her, it seemed strange. The baroness seized her hands: "My daughter,
my darling Jeanne! My child, do you recognize me?"