The green bud of her love withers without ever having blossomed. But as his illness grows worse, his longing to have Marie always beside him increases. When he is sufficiently free from pain to go out driving, he gets his brother to carry him up to her; and at other times she comes with her mother to visit him. It is quite a little idyl. His mother, a worthy woman of the working-class, cooks his soup; while her mother, who is a smart lady, cuts his hair, which has grown too long, and his brother, the architect, crops his beard. After their united efforts he looks as handsome as ever, and no longer so ill. Then Marie must sit by his bedside, while he turns his back upon the others and looks only at her,—and speaks of art.
It is September, 1884. Marie coughs and coughs. Bastien is getting worse and worse, and he cannot bear her to leave him, even while he is undergoing his worst paroxysms of pain. On the 1st of October she writes in her journal:
“Tant de dégoût et tant de tristesse!
“What is the use of writing?
“Bastien Lepage is getting worse and worse.
“And I cannot work.
“My picture will not be finished.
“Alas! Alas!
“He is dying and suffers a great deal. When one is with him, one seems to have left the world behind. He is already beyond our reach, and there are days when the same feeling comes over me. I see people, they talk, and I answer; but I seem to be no longer on the earth,—a quiet indifference, not painful, almost like an opium dream. And he is dying! I go there more from habit than anything else; he is a shadow of his former self, and I, too, am scarcely more than a shadow; what is the good of it all?
“He is hardly conscious of my presence now; there is little use in going; I have not the power to enliven him. He is contented to see me, and that is all.