ssional habits, he only came to a deathbed to accomplish a
perfunctory formality; he knew nothing; his science was a lie, since
he could not at a glance distinguish life from death--and now he was
going--going!

"Good night, sir," said Simoneau.

There came a moment's silence; the doctor was probably bowing to
Marguerite, who had turned while Mme Gabin was fastening the window. He
left the room, and I heard his footsteps descending the stairs.

It was all over; I was condemned. My last hope had vanished with that
man. If I did not wake before eleven on the morrow I should be
buried alive. The horror of that thought was so great that I lost all
consciousness of my surroundings--'twas something like a fainting fit in
death. The last sound I heard was the clicking of the scissors handled
by Mme Gabin and Dede. The funeral vigil had begun; nobody spoke.

Marguerite had refused to retire to rest in the neighbor's room. She
remained reclining in her armchair, with her beautiful face pale, her
eyes closed and her long lashes wet with tears, while before her in the
gloom Simoneau sat silently watching her.

CHAPTER III

THE PROCESSION

I cannot describe my agony during the morning of the following day. I
remember it as a hideous dream in which my impressions were so ghastly
and so confused that I could not formulate them. The persistent yearning
for a sudden awakening increased my torture, and as the hour for the
funeral drew nearer my anguish became more poignant still.

It was only at daybreak that I had recovered a fuller consciousness of
what was going on around me. The creaking of hinges startled me out of
my stupor. Mme Gabin had just opened the window. It must have been
about seven o'clock, for I heard the cries of hawkers in the street, the
shrill voice of a girl offering groundsel and the hoarse voice of a
man shouting "Carrots!" The clamorous awakening of Paris pacified me at
first. I could not believe that I should be laid under the sod in the
midst of so much life; and, besides, a sudden thought helped to calm me.
It had just occurred to me that I had witnessed a case similar to my own
when I was employed at the hospital of Guerande. A man had been sleeping
twenty-eight hours, the doctors hesitating in presence of his apparent
lifelessness, when suddenly he had sat up in bed and was almost at once
able to rise. I myself had already been asleep for some twenty-five
hours; if I awoke at ten I should sti