rection lay
her madness, the vainly sought explanation of the crime. Vertigo again
fell upon her, the thought of her dead son and of the other being master
in his place, all her perverted passion for that only son of hers, the
despoiled prince, all her poisoned, fermenting rage which had unhinged
and maddened her, even to the point of murder. Had that monstrous
vegetation growing within her reached her brain then? A rush of blood
suffices at times to bedim a conscience. But she obstinately clung
to the view that she had been absent; she forced back her tears and
remained frigid. No remorse came to her. It was done, and 'twas good
that it should be done. It was necessary. She had not pushed him, he
himself had fallen. Had she not been there he would have fallen just the
same. And so since she had not been there, since both her brain and
her heart had been absent, it did not concern her. And ever and ever
resounded the words which absolved her and chanted her victory; he was
dead, and would never possess the works.

Erect in the middle of the drawing-room, Constance listened, straining
her ears. Why was it that she heard nothing? How long they were in
going down to pick him up! Anxiously waiting for the tumult which she
expected, the clamor of horror which would assuredly rise from the
works, the heavy footsteps, the loud calls, she held her breath,
quivering at the slightest, faintest sound. Several minutes still
elapsed, and the cosey quietude of her drawing-room pleased her. That
room was like an asylum of bourgeois rectitude, luxurious dignity, in
which she felt protected, saved. Some little objects on which her eyes
lighted, a pocket scent-bottle ornamented with an opal, a paper-knife of
burnished silver left inside a book, fully reassured her. She was moved,
almost surprised at the sight of them, as if they had acquired some new
and particular meaning. Then she shivered slightly and perceived that
her hands were icy cold. She rubbed them together gently, wishing to
warm them a little. Why was it, too, that she now felt so tired? It
seemed to her as if she had just returned from some long walk, from
some accident, from some affray in which she had been bruised. She felt
within her also a tendency to somnolence, the somnolence of satiety, as
if she had feasted too copiously off some spicy dish, after too great
a hunger. Amid the fatigue which benumbed her limbs she desired
nothing more; apart from her sleepiness all t