, it was no longer that of your child. He gave a kind of sigh,
and his heavy eyelids drooped. You took his hands, elongated,
transparent, and with colorless nails; they were warm and moist. You
kissed them, those poor little hands, but there was no responsive thrill
to the contact of your lips. Then you turned round, and saw your wife
weeping behind you. It was at that moment when you felt yourself shudder
from head to foot, and that the idea of a possible woe seized on you,
never more to leave you. Every moment you kept going back to the bed and
raising the curtains again, hoping perhaps that you had not seen aright,
or that a miracle had taken place; but you withdrew quickly, with a lump
in your throat. And yet you strove to smile, to make him smile himself;
you sought to arouse in him the wish for something, but in vain; he
remained motionless, exhausted, not even turning round, indifferent to
all you said, to everything, even yourself.

And what is all that is needed to strike down this little creature, to
reduce him to this pitch? Only a few hours. What, is that all that is
needed to put an end to him? Five minutes. Perhaps.

You know that life hangs on a thread in this frail body, so little fitted
to suffer. You feel that life is only a breath, and say to yourself:
"Suppose this one is his last." A little while back he was complaining.
Already he does so no longer. It seems as though someone is clasping him,
bearing him away, tearing him from your arms. Then you draw near him, and
clasp him to you almost involuntarily, as though to give him back some of
your own life. His bed is damp with fever sweats, his lips are losing
their color. The nostrils of his little nose, grown sharp and dry, rise
and fall. His mouth remains wide open. It is that little rosy mouth which
used to laugh so joyfully, those are the two lips that used to press
themselves to yours, and . . . all the joys, the bursts of laughter, the
follies, the endless chatter, all the bygone happiness, flock to your
recollection at the sound of that gasping, breathing, while big hot tears
fall slowly from your eyes. Poor wee man. Your hand seeks his little
legs, and you dare not touch his chest, which you have kissed so often,
for fear of encountering that ghastly leanness which you foresee, but the
contact of which would make you break out in sobs. And then, at a certain
moment, while the sunlight was flooding the room, you heard a deeper
moan, resembling