kind of sigh, and his heavy eyelids drooped. You took his hands,
elongated, transparent, and with colorless nails; they were warm and
moist. You kissed them, those poor little hands, but there was no
responsive thrill to the contact of your lips. Then you turned round,
and saw your wife weeping behind you. It was at that moment when you
felt yourself shudder from head to foot, and that the idea of a possible
woe seized on you, never more to leave you. Every moment you kept going
back to the bed and raising the curtains again, hoping perhaps that you
had not seen aright, or that a miracle had taken place; but you withdrew
quickly, with a lump in your throat. And yet you strove to smile, to
make him smile himself; you sought to arouse in him the wish for
something, but in vain; he remained motionless, exhausted, not even
turning round, indifferent to all you said, to everything, even yourself.

And what is all that is needed to strike down this little creature, to
reduce him to this pitch? Only a few hours. What, is that all that is
needed to put an end to him? Five minutes. Perhaps.

You know that life hangs on a thread in this frail body, so little fitted
to suffer. You feel that life is only a breath, and say to yourself:
"Suppose this one is his last." A little while back he was complaining.
Already he does so no longer. It seems as though someone is clasping
him, bearing him away, tearing him from your arms. Then you draw near
him, and clasp him to you almost involuntarily, as though to give him
back some of your own life. His bed is damp with fever sweats, his lips
are losing their color. The nostrils of his little nose, grown sharp and
dry, rise and fall. His mouth remains wide open. It is that little rosy
mouth which used to laugh so joyfully, those are the two lips that used
to press themselves to yours, and . . . all the joys, the bursts of
laughter, the follies, the endless chatter, all the bygone happiness,