outlines, which seemed to be melting
away. To Jeanne the scene now brought nothing beyond sleepiness and
horrid dreams, as though all the mystery and unknown evil were rising
up in vapor to pierce her through and make her cough. Every time she
opened her eyes she was seized with a fit of coughing, and would
remain for a few seconds looking at the scene; which as her head fell
back once more, clung to her mind, and seemed to spread over her and
crush her.

The rain was still falling. What hour might it be now? Jeanne could
not have told. Perhaps the clock had ceased going. It seemed to her
too great a fatigue to turn round. It was surely at least a week since
her mother had quitted her. She had abandoned all expectation of her
return; she was resigned to the prospect of never seeing her again.
Then she became oblivious of everything--the wrongs which had been
done her, the pain which she had just experienced, even the loneliness
in which she was suffered to remain. A weight, chilly like stone, fell
upon her. This only was certain: she was very unhappy--ah! as unhappy
as the poor little waifs to whom she gave alms as they huddled
together in gateways. Ah! Heaven! how coughing racked one, and how
penetrating was the cold when there was no nobody to love one! She
closed her heavy eyelids, succumbing to a feverish stupor; and the
last of her thoughts was a vague memory of childhood, of a visit to a
mill, full of yellow wheat, and of tiny grains slipping under
millstones as huge as houses.

Hours and hours passed away; each minute was a century. The rain beat
down without ceasing, with ever the same tranquil flow, as though all
time and eternity were allowed it to deluge the plain. Jeanne had
fallen asleep. Close by, her doll still sat astride the iron
window-bar; and, with its legs in the room and its head outside, its
nightdress clinging to its rosy skin, its eyes glaring, and its hair
streaming with water, it looked not unlike a drowned child; and so
emaciated did it appear in its comical yet distressing posture of
death, that it almost brought tears of pity to the eyes. Jeanne
coughed in her sleep; but now she never once opened her eyes. Her head
swayed to and fro on her crossed arms, and the cough spent itself in a
wheeze without awakening her. Nothing more existed for her. She slept
in the darkness. She did not even withdraw her hand, from whose cold,
red fingers bright raindrops were trickling one by one into the va