augury was
unfavourable, he forced himself to disbelieve in it. In his sudden
outbursts of rage against Madame Arnoux, he abused her in muttering
tones. Then came fits of weakness that nearly made him swoon, followed,
all of a sudden, by fresh rebounds of hopefulness. She would make her
appearance presently! She was there, behind his back! He turned
round--there was nobody there! Once he perceived, about thirty paces
away, a woman of the same height, with a dress of the same kind. He came
up to her--it was not she. It struck five--half-past five--six. The
gas-lamps were lighted, Madame Arnoux had not come.

The night before, she had dreamed that she had been, for some time, on
the footpath in the Rue Tronchet. She was waiting there for something
the nature of which she was not quite clear about, but which,
nevertheless, was of great importance; and, without knowing why, she was
afraid of being seen. But a pestiferous little dog kept barking at her
furiously and biting at the hem of her dress. Every time she shook him
off he returned stubbornly to the attack, always barking more violently
than before. Madame Arnoux woke up. The dog's barking continued. She
strained her ears to listen. It came from her son's room. She rushed to
the spot in her bare feet. It was the child himself who was coughing.
His hands were burning, his face flushed, and his voice singularly
hoarse. Every minute he found it more difficult to breathe freely. She
waited there till daybreak, bent over the coverlet watching him.

At eight o'clock the drum of the National Guard gave warning to M.
Arnoux that his comrades were expecting his arrival. He dressed himself
quickly and went away, promising that he would immediately be passing
the house of their doctor, M. Colot.

At ten o'clock, when M. Colot did not make his appearance, Madame Arnoux
despatched her chambermaid for him. The doctor was away in the country;
and the young man who was taking his place had gone out on some
business.

Eugene kept his head on one side on the bolster with contracted eyebrows
and dilated nostrils. His pale little face had become whiter than the
sheets; and there escaped from his larynx a wheezing caused by his
oppressed breathing, which became gradually shorter, dryer, and more
metallic. His cough resembled the noise made by those barbarous
mechanical inventions by which toy-dogs are enabled to bark.

Madame Arnoux was seized with terror. She rang the bell violently