The room seemed to be darker, and in the middle of it, a tall emaciated figure moved about. The old woman stood upright, and in awakening from her lethargic sleep, before even full consciousness had returned to her, in turning upon her side and raising herself on her elbow, she had extinguished three of the candles which burned near the mortuary bed. Then, recovering her strength, she got out of bed and began to look for her things. The absence of her chest of drawers had at first given her some trouble, but, after a little, she had succeeded in finding her things at the bottom of the wooden trunk, and was now quietly dressing. She emptied the dishful of salted water, replaced the box which contained the latter behind the looking-glass, arranged the chairs in their places, and was ready to go downstairs when her son and daughter-in-law appeared.
Caravan rushed forward, seized her by the hands, and embraced her with tears in his eyes, while his wife, who was behind him, repeated in a hypocritical tone of voice: “Oh, what a blessing! Oh, what a blessing!”
But the old woman, not at all moved, without even appearing to understand, as rigid as a statue, and with glazed eyes, simply asked: “Will dinner soon be ready?”
He stammered out, not knowing what he said:
“Oh, yes, mother, we have been waiting for you.”
And with an alacrity unusual in him he took her arm, while Madame Caravan the younger seized the candle and lighted them downstairs, walking backward in front of them, step by step, just as she had done the previous night, in front of her husband, when he was carrying the marble.
On reaching the first floor, she ran against people who were ascending. It was the family from Charenton, Madame Braux, followed by her husband.
The wife, tall and fleshy, with the stomach of a victim of dropsy, opened wide her astonished eyes, ready to take flight. The husband, a shoemaker and socialist, a little hairy man, the perfect image of a monkey, murmured, quite unconcerned: “Well, what next? Is she resurrected?”
As soon as Madame Caravan recognized them, she made despairing signs to them; then speaking aloud, she said: “Mercy! How do you mean! Look there! What a happy surprise!”
But Madame Braux, dumbfounded, understood nothing. She responded in a low voice: “It was your telegram which made us come; we believed it was all over.”
Her husband, who was behind her, pinched her to make her keep silent. He added with a malignant laugh, which his thick beard concealed: “It was very kind of you to invite us here. We set out in post-haste”—a remark which showed clearly the hostility that for a long time had reigned between the households. Then, just as the old woman had arrived at the last steps, he pushed forward quickly and rubbed against her cheeks the hair which covered his face, bawling out in her ear, on account of her deafness: “How well you look, mother; sturdy as usual, hey!”
Madame Braux, in her amazement at seeing the old woman alive whom they all believed to be dead, dared not even embrace her; and her enormous bulk blocked up the passage and hindered the others from advancing. The old woman, uneasy and suspicious, but without speaking, looked at everyone around her. Her little gray eyes, piercing and hard, fixed themselves now on the one and now on the other, full of thoughts which could be read by her embarrassed children.
Caravan, to explain matters, said: “She has been somewhat ill, but she is quite better now—quite well, indeed, are you not, mother?”
Then the good woman, stopping in her walk, responded in a husky voice, as though it came from a distance: “It was catalepsy. I heard you all the while.”
An embarrassing silence followed. They entered the dining room, and in a few minutes sat down to an improvised dinner.
Only Monsieur Braux had retained his self-possession; his gorilla features grinned wickedly, while he let fall some words of double meaning which painfully disconcerted everyone.
But the bell in the hall kept on ringing every second; and Rosalie, who had lost her head, came looking for Caravan, who dashed out, throwing down his napkin. His brother-in-law even asked him whether it was not one of his visiting days, to which he stammered out, “No, a few messages; nothing of importance.”
Next, a packet was brought in, which he began to open without thinking, and the death announcements, with black borders, appeared. Reddening up to the very eyes, Caravan closed the envelope, and pushed it into his waistcoat pocket.
His mother had not seen it! She was looking intently at her clock, which stood on the mantelpiece, and the embarrassment increased in midst of a glacial silence. Turning her wrinkled old witch’s face toward her daughter, the old woman, from whose eyes flashed fierce malice, said:
“On Monday bring me your little girl. I want so much to see her.”
Madame Braux, her features illuminated, exclaimed: “Yes, mother, I will,” while Madame Caravan, the younger, became pale, and seemed to be enduring the most excruciating agony. The two men, however, gradually drifted into conversation, and soon became embroiled in a political discussion. Braux maintained the most revolutionary and communistic doctrines, gesticulating and throwing about his arms, his eyes gleaming in his hairy countenance.
“Property, sir,” he said, “is a robbery perpetrated on the working classes; the land is the common property of every man; hereditary rights are an infamy and a disgrace.” But, hereupon, he suddenly stopped, having all the appearance of a man who has just said something foolish: then, resuming, after a pause, he said in softer tones: “But, I can see quite well that this is not the proper moment to discuss things.”
The door was opened, and “Doctor” Chenet appeared. For a moment he seemed bewildered, but
