Then there was a silence of several seconds: then the child came down again, precipitately. She opened the door, terrified, even more affected than she had been the evening before when she had announced the catastrophe, and she muttered in a stifled voice:

‘Oh, papa, grandma’s putting on her clothes!’

Caravan sprang up with such a start that his chair went rolling against the wall. He stammered:

‘You say—What is it you are saying?’

But Marie Louise, strangled by emotion, repeated:

‘Grand—grand—grandma’s putting on her clothes. She’s coming down.’

He rushed madly to the staircase, followed by his dumbfounded wife, but opposite the door of the second floor he stopped, shaken by fear, not daring to enter. What was he going to see? Madame Caravan, bolder, turned the handle, and advanced into the room.

The room seemed darker: and, in the centre, a tall thin figure was moving. She was on her feet, the old lady; and in waking from her lethargic sleep, even before consciousness had thoroughly returned, turning on her side and raising herself on an elbow, she had blown out three of the candles which burned near the bed of death. Then, gathering her strength, she had got up to get her clothes. The absence of the chest of drawers had bothered her at first, but little by little she had found her possessions at the very bottom of the wooden box, and had quietly dressed herself. Then, having emptied the plate filled with water, replaced the box-wood behind the mirror, and put the chairs back in their places, she was about to come down when her son and her daughter-in-law appeared before her.

Caravan rushed forward, seized her hands, kissed her, tears in his eyes: while his wife, behind him, repeated with a hypocritical air:

‘What a blessing, what a blessing!’

But the old woman, without any sign of softening, without even having the appearance of understanding, stiff as a statue, eyes icy, asked only:

‘Is dinner ready now?’

He stammered, losing his head.

‘Yes, mamma, we are waiting for you,’ and with an immense earnestness, he took her arm, while Madame Caravan the younger seized the candle and lighted them, going down the staircase before them backwards and step by step, as she had done that very night before her husband carrying the marble top.

On arriving at the first floor, she almost fell against some people who were coming up. It was the family from Charenton, Madame Braux followed by her husband.

The wife, tall, fat, with a dropsical stomach that threw her chest back, opened terrified eyes, ready to flee. The husband, a Socialist shoemaker, a little man all hair up to his nose, just like a monkey, murmured without any emotion:

‘Well, well, what’s this? She’s resuscitated!’

As soon as Madame Caravan recognized them she made desperate signs to them; then aloud:

‘Ah, what’s this! it’s you! What a nice surprise!’