ew it now; yes,
her mother was false to her.

Over Paris a great sorrow seemed to be brooding, pending the arrival
of a fresh squall. A murmur travelled through the darkened air, and
heavy clouds were hovering overhead. Jeanne, still at the window, was
convulsed by another fit of coughing; but in the chill she experienced
she felt herself revenged; she would willingly have had her illness
return. With her hands pressed against her bosom, she grew conscious
of some pain growing more intense within her. It was an agony to which
her body abandoned itself. She trembled with fear, and did not again
venture to turn round; she felt quite cold at the idea of glancing
into the room any more. To be little means to be without strength.
What could this new complaint be which filled her with mingled shame
and bitter pleasure? With stiffened body, she sat there as if waiting
--every one of her pure and innocent limbs in an agony of revulsion.
From the innermost recesses of her being all her woman's feelings were
aroused, and there darted through her a pang, as though she had
received a blow from a distance. Then with failing heart she cried out
chokingly: "Mamma! mamma!" No one could have known whether she called
to her mother for aid, or whether she accused her of having inflicted
on her the pain which seemed to be killing her.

At that moment the tempest burst. Through the deep and ominous
stillness the wind howled over the city, which was shrouded in
darkness; and afterwards there came a long-continued crashing
--window-shutters beating to and fro, slates flying, chimney-tops and
gutter-pipes rattling on to the pavements. For a few seconds a calm
ensued; then there blew another gust, which swept along with such
mighty strength that the ocean of roofs seemed convulsed, tossing
about in waves, and then disappearing in a whirlpool. For a moment
chaos reigned. Some enormous clouds, like huge blots of ink, swept
through a host of smaller ones, which were scattered and floated like
shreds of rag which the wind tore to pieces and carried off thread by
thread. A second later two clouds rushed upon one another, and rent
one another with crashing reports, which seemed to sprinkle the
coppery expanse with wreckage; and every time the hurricane thus
veered, blowing from every point of the compass, the thunder of
opposing navies resounded in the atmosphere, and an awful rending and
sinking followed, the hanging fragments of the clouds, jagge