drove her away, and treated her like a beggar. So I settled her, the old woman! She pretended not to hear, as she always does when you tell her the truth about herself, but she’s no more deaf than I am, believe me; it’s all put on, that; and the proof of it is, that she’s gone up to her room at once without saying a word.’

Caravan, upset, didn’t say anything, and the little servant rushed in to announce dinner. Then, by way of letting his mother know, he took a long-handled broom, and hit the ceiling three times with it. Then they went through to the dining-room, and Madame Caravan the younger served the soup while they waited for the old lady. She didn’t come and the soup got cold. Then they began quite quietly to eat: then, when the plates were empty, they waited again. Madame Caravan, furious, turned on her husband.

‘She’s doing it on purpose, you know. And you always back her up.’

He, very perplexed between the two of them, sent Marie Louise to look for grandma, and sat motionless, his eyes down, while his wife angrily tapped the bottom of her glass with the end of her knife.

Suddenly the door opened, and the child reappeared alone, quite out of breath and very pale. She said very quickly:

‘Grandma’s fallen on the floor.’

Caravan, with a bound, got to his feet, and, throwing his napkin on the table, dashed for the stairs, where his heavy, hurried footsteps sounded, while his wife, thinking it an ill-tempered ruse of her mother-in- law’s, came along more slowly, shrugging her shoulders in contempt.

The old lady was lying full length on her face in the middle of the room, and when her son had turned her over, she lay there motionless and dried up, with her yellow, wrinkled, tanned skin, and her eyes closed, her teeth clenched, and all her thin body stiff.

Caravan, on his knees beside her, groaned: ‘My poor mother, my poor mother!’ But the other Madame Caravan, after looking at her for a minute, declared: ‘Bah, she’s got another fainting fit, that’s all: it’s just to keep us from our dinner, you may be sure of that.’

They carried the body to the bed, took off all her clothes, and all of them, Caravan, his wife, the servant, began to massage her. In spite of their efforts, she did not regain consciousness. Then they sent Rosalie to get Dr. Chenet. He lived on the quay, near Suresnes. It was a long way: the wait was long. At length he arrived, and after having looked at her, felt her, listened to the old woman’s chest, pronounced:

‘It’s the end.’

Caravan collapsed on the body, shaken by hurried sobs, and he kissed convulsively the rigid face of his mother, weeping with such abundance that the big tears fell like drops of water on the dead woman’s face.

Madame Caravan the younger had a conventional attack of grief, and standing behind her husband, she uttered feeble groans, and rubbed her eyes obstinately.

Caravan, his face swollen, his thin hair disordered, very ugly in his sincere sorrow, stood up suddenly: ‘But, are you sure, doctor——are you quite sure?’ The practitioner came up quickly, and, handling the body with professional dexterity, like a merchant who is showing off his goods: ‘Look, my good man, look at her eye.’ He raised the lid and the glance of the old woman reappeared under his finger, not at all changed, with the pupil perhaps a little larger. Caravan felt a blow at his heart, and a shudder ran up his bones.

Monsieur Chenet took the stiff arm, forced the finger to open, and, furious as in the face of someone who contradicted him: