at the slightest cause. He merely gave a sigh of
weariness. Instinct, however, must have warned him, for he moaned more
loudly than before, and called confusedly in stammering accents:

"Mamma! mamma!"

His weakness was no doubt already excessive, for an irresistible stupor
once more took possession of him, his head dropped, his eyes closed, and
he seemed to fall asleep again, continuing his plaint, as if in a dream,
moaning in fainter and fainter accents:

"Mamma! mamma!"

Now the pictures were inundated; the black velvet jacket and trousers,
braided with gold, were stained with long streaks of blood, and the
little red stream began again to flow persistently from his left
nostril, without stopping, crossed the red pool on the table and fell
upon the ground, where it at last formed a veritable lake. A loud cry
from the madwoman, a terrified call would have sufficed. But she did
not cry, she did not call; motionless, rigid, emaciated, sitting there
forgotten of the world, she gazed with the fixed look of the ancestress
who sees the destinies of her race being accomplished. She sat there as
if dried up, bound; her limbs and her tongue tied by her hundred years,
her brain ossified by madness, incapable of willing or of acting. And
yet the sight of the little red stream began to stir some feeling in
her. A tremor passed over her deathlike countenance, a flush mounted to
her cheeks. Finally, a last plaint roused her completely:

"Mamma! mamma!"

Then it was evident that a terrible struggle was taking place in Aunt
Dide. She carried her skeleton-like hand to her forehead as if she felt
her brain bursting. Her mouth was wide open, but no sound issued
from it; the dreadful tumult that had arisen within her had no doubt
paralyzed her tongue. She tried to rise, to run, but she had no longer
any muscles; she remained fastened to her seat. All her poor body
trembled in the superhuman effort which she was making to cry for help,
without being able to break the bonds of old age and madness which
held her prisoner. Her face was distorted with terror; memory gradually
awakening, she must have comprehended everything.

And it was a slow and gentle agony, of which the spectacle lasted for
several minutes more. Charles, silent now, as if he had again fallen
asleep, was losing the last drops of blood that had remained in his
veins, which were emptying themselves softly. His lily-like whiteness
increased until it became a deathlike