when she was in the train and went to put on her gloves did she
perceive that one of them was missing. But she supposed that it had
fallen on the platform at the station as she was getting into the car.
She believed herself to be quite calm, but she remained with one hand
gloved and one hand bare, which, with her, could only be the result of
great agitation.

On the following day Pascal and Clotilde took the three o'clock train to
go to the Tulettes. The mother of Charles, the harness-maker's wife,
had brought the boy to them, as they had offered to take him to Uncle
Macquart's, where he was to remain for the rest of the week. Fresh
quarrels had disturbed the peace of the household, the husband having
resolved to tolerate no longer in his house another man's child, that
do-nothing, imbecile prince's son. As it was Grandmother Rougon who had
dressed him, he was, indeed, dressed on this day, again, in black velvet
trimmed with gold braid, like a young lord, a page of former times going
to court. And during the quarter of an hour which the journey lasted,
Clotilde amused herself in the compartment, in which they were alone,
by taking off his cap and smoothing his beautiful blond locks, his
royal hair that fell in curls over his shoulders. She had a ring on her
finger, and as she passed her hand over his neck she was startled to
perceive that her caress had left behind it a trace of blood. One
could not touch the boy's skin without the red dew exuding from it;
the tissues had become so lax through extreme degeneration that the
slightest scratch brought on a hemorrhage. The doctor became at once
uneasy, and asked him if he still bled at the nose as frequently as
formerly. Charles hardly knew what to answer; first saying no, then,
recollecting himself, he said that he had bled a great deal the other
day. He seemed, indeed, weaker; he grew more childish as he grew older;
his intelligence, which had never developed, had become clouded. This
tall boy of fifteen, so beautiful, so girlish-looking, with the color of
a flower that had grown in the shade, did not look ten.

At the Tulettes Pascal decided that they would first take the boy to
Uncle Macquart's. They ascended the steep road. In the distance the
little house looked gay in the sunshine, as it had looked on the day
before, with its yellow walls and its green mulberry trees extending
their twisted branches and covering the terrace with a thick, leafy
roof. A delightful sen