y
state.

In her head, which seemed to her lighter than usual, there suddenly began
a grand procession of thoughts and memories. The most distant periods of
her past seemed to approach her. The most trivial incidents of her
childhood, scenes that she had not then understood, words heard as in a
dream, recurred to her mind.

From her bed she could see her father and mother, one by her side, the
other in the workroom, the door of which had been left open. Mamma
Delobelle was lying back in her chair in the careless attitude of
long-continued fatigue, heeded at last; and all the scars, the ugly sabre
cuts with which age and suffering brand the faces of the old, manifested
themselves, ineffaceable and pitiful to see, in the relaxation of
slumber. Desiree would have liked to be strong enough to rise and kiss
that lovely, placid brow, furrowed by wrinkles which did not mar its
beauty.

In striking contrast to that picture, the illustrious Delobelle appeared
to his daughter through the open door in one of his favorite attitudes.
Seated before the little white cloth that bore his supper, with his body
at an angle of sixty-seven and a half degrees, he was eating and at the
same time running through a pamphlet which rested against the carafe in
front of him.

For the first time in her life Desiree noticed the striking lack of
harmony between her emaciated mother, scantily clad in little black
dresses which made her look even thinner and more haggard than she really
was, and her happy, well-fed, idle, placid, thoughtless father. At a
glance she realized the difference between the two lives. What would
become of them when she was no longer there? Either her mother would work
too hard and would kill herself; or else the poor woman would be obliged
to cease working altogether, and that selfish husband, forever engrossed
by his theatrical ambition, would allow them both to drift gradually into
abject poverty, that black hole which widens and deepens as one goes down
into it.

Suppose that, before going away--something told her that she would go
very soon--before going away, she should tear away the thick bandage that
the poor man kept over his eyes wilfully and by force?

Only a hand as light and loving as hers could attempt that operation.
Only she had the right to say to her father:

"Earn your living. Give up the stage."

Thereupon, as time was flying, Desire Delobelle summoned all her courage
and called softly:

"Papa-