Then with a ghastly rattle in his throat, he quivered, and lay paralyzed again: only the eyes were alive, and were still speaking—awfully.
Folle-Farine went up to his bed, and stood beside it, looking down on him.
"You mean—my mother?"
It was the first time that she had ever said the word. Her voice lingered on the word, as though loath to leave its unfamiliar sweetness.
He lay and looked at her, motionless, impatient, lifeless; save only for the bleak and bloodshot stare of the stony eyes.
She thought that he had heard; but he made no sign in answer.
She sank down on her knees beside his bed, and put her lips close to him.
"Try and speak to me of my mother—once—once," she murmured, with a pathetic longing in her voice.
A shudder shook his frozen limbs. He made no answer, he only glared on her with a terrible stare that might be horror, repentance, grief, memory, fear—she could not tell.
Old Pitchou stretched her head from the corner, as a hooded snake from its hole.