t."

When he left his office the next day he went to inquire for Madame
Simon. He found her eating rich soup with an air of great satisfaction.

"Well?" said he.

"Oh, sir," she replied, "I'm just the same. I feel sort of crushed--not
a bit better."

The doctor declared they must wait and see; some complication or other
might arise.

Hector waited three days, then he returned. The old woman, fresh-faced
and clear-eyed, began to whine when she saw him:

"I can't move, sir; I can't move a bit. I shall be like this for the
rest of my days."

A shudder passed through Hector's frame. He asked for the doctor, who
merely shrugged his shoulders and said:

"What can I do? I can't tell what's wrong with her. She shrieks when
they try to raise her. They can't even move her chair from one place to
another without her uttering the most distressing cries. I am bound to
believe what she tells me; I can't look into her inside. So long as I
have no chance of seeing her walk I am not justified in supposing her to
be telling lies about herself."

The old woman listened, motionless, a malicious gleam in her eyes.

A week passed, then a fortnight, then a month. Madame Simon did not
leave her armchair. She ate from morning to night, grew fat, chatted
gaily with the other patients and seemed to enjoy her immobility as if
it were the rest to which she was entitled after fifty years of going up
and down stairs, of turning mattresses, of carrying coal from one story
to another, of sweeping and dusting.

Hector, at his wits' end, came to see her every day. Every day he found
her calm and serene, declaring:

"I can't move, sir; I shall never be able to move again."

Every evening Madame de Gribelin, devoured with anxiety, said:

"How is Madame Simon?"

And every time he replied with a resignation born of despair:

"Just the same; no change whatever."

They dismissed the servant, whose wages they could no longer afford.
They economized more rigidly than ever. The whole of the extra pay had
been swallowed up.

Then Hector summoned four noted doctors, who met in consultation over
the old woman. She let them examine her, feel her, sound her, watching
them the while with a cunning eye.

"We must make her walk," said one.

"But, sirs, I can't!" she cried. "I can't move!"

Then they took hold of her, raised her and dragged her a short distance,
but she slipped from their grasp and fell to the floor, groaning and
giving vent to