ead."

Then, although it fatigued her to speak, she obstinately went on talking,
volunteering particulars about herself. She was a mattress-maker, and
with one of her aunts had long gone from yard to yard at Bercy to comb
and sew up mattresses. And, indeed, it was to the pestilential wool which
she had combed in her youth that she ascribed her malady. For five years
she had been making the round of the hospitals of Paris, and she spoke
familiarly of all the great doctors. It was the Sisters of Charity, at
the Lariboisiere hospital, who, finding that she had a passion for
religious ceremonies, had completed her conversion, and convinced her
that the Virgin awaited her at Lourdes to cure her.

"I certainly need it," said she. "The doctors say that I have one lung
done for, and that the other one is scarcely any better. There are great
big holes you know. At first I only felt bad between the shoulders and
spat up some froth. But then I got thin, and became a dreadful sight. And
now I'm always in a sweat, and cough till I think I'm going to bring my
heart up. And I can no longer spit. And I haven't the strength to stand,
you see. I can't eat."

A stifling sensation made her pause, and she became livid.

"All the same I prefer being in my skin instead of in that of the Brother
in the compartment behind you. He has the same complaint as I have, but
he is in a worse state that I am."

She was mistaken. In the farther compartment, beyond Marie, there was
indeed a young missionary, Brother Isidore, who was lying on a mattress
and could not be seen, since he was unable to raise even a finger. But he
was not suffering from phthisis. He was dying of inflammation of the
liver, contracted in Senegal. Very long and lank, he had a yellow face,
with skin as dry and lifeless as parchment. The abscess which had formed
in his liver had ended by breaking out externally, and amidst the
continuous shivering of fever, vomiting, and delirium, suppuration was
exhausting him. His eyes alone were still alive, eyes full of
unextinguishable love, whose flame lighted up his expiring face, a
peasant face such as painters have given to the crucified Christ, common,
but rendered sublime at moments by its expression of faith and passion.
He was a Breton, the last puny child of an over-numerous family, and had
left his little share of land to his elder brothers. One of his sisters,
Marthe, older than himself by a couple of years, accompanied him. She