Her weakness was too great, her breath
was halting. Yet her eyes continued open and full of life, amid her pale,
yellow, waxy mask. And those eyes seemed to fix themselves despairingly
on the past, on all that which soon would be no more: the little
clockmaker's shop hidden away in a populous neighbourhood; the gentle
humdrum existence, with a toiling husband who was ever bending over his
watches; the great pleasures of Sunday, such as watching children fly
their kites upon the fortifications. And at last these staring eyes gazed
vainly into the frightful night which was gathering.
A last time did Madame de Jonquiere lean over her, seeing that her lips
were again moving. There came but a faint breath, a voice from far away,
which distantly murmured in an accent of intense grief: "She did not cure
me."
And then Madame Vetu expired, very gently.
As though this were all that she had been waiting for, little Sophie
Couteau jumped from the bed quite satisfied, and went off to play with
her doll again at the far end of the ward.
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