She hunched her shoulder. I put my big pitcher down by her pail on the floor, and patted her shoulder and said, "Please, oh, please."
She said, not turning or raising her head, "They've taken him to the children's hospital—Jeanjean, my little boy, you know; he has been very ill all the week. A neighbour said, five days ago, she would take him to the Clinique, there is no hour when I can get away from here to take him. It was the neighbour who looked after him the day they sent him home from school because he was sick. She is very good, but she has not much time. She has got her work. She did not know how ill he was. I told her, the first day, to take him to the Clinique, but that day she had no time. She did not tell me. She told me that at the Clinique they said it was nothing. She told me that every day. For five days she did not take him. I only saw him in the nights, you know. Oh, it is horrible when you can only see them at night."
She stopped a minute and was sobbing, but without making any noise. She rubbed the tears out of her eyes against the back of her hand, and went on. It was odd to hear her talk so much, like that—she whom I only knew as sullen and silent.
"It is nearly eight at night when I get home," said she, "and I have to leave soon after five in the morning. I was up with him all the nights, and I was so frightened all the days. Oh, these days here!"
She stood always with her back turned, and I could only stand there, patting her shoulder. It was queer how such big sobs made no noise at all.
She said, "The neighbour got frightened yesterday, and took him to the Clinique, and they said it was spinal-meningitis, and sent him then, at once, to the children's hospital. When I got home he was gone. It was night, they would not have let me see him at the hospital. This morning I had to come here. But I shall get off at noon and go to him for an hour."
She shook herself and jerked away from me.
"Now do you see?" she said, "now do you see?"
And without saying what it was she meant she took up her pail, and 25's little bundle of things, and went on along the corridor.