“No, I haven’t been able to go to sleep, I don’t know why.”
“It must be because you are sicker; and you have not been well for several days, although you didn’t admit it to me.”
“It’s nothing, just the lumbago, it will soon be gone. If you would just give me something to drink, my dear, for I am very thirsty.”
“Yes, mother, in a minute. Wait until I light your candle and put out this tallow thing of mine which smells worse than thirty-six lamps.”
After lighting a bit of candle stuck in a bottle, Georget approached his mother’s bed.
“Come, now you must tell me where your medicine is. But gracious heaven, how red your face is, mother! and black circles round your eyes! Are you worse?”
“Why, no, it is the heat of the bed that does that.”
“Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse. Oh! how hot your hand is! You are feverish, and very feverish too, I am sure.”
“Nonsense, as if you knew anything about it.”