“Your mother is admirable. She has not gone to bed once since his illness. And she keeps calm. You have seen how calm she is. For my part I can’t understand her.” As she had just left the room above I tried to get at the truth of the case. “Well, Aunt, is he--” But I could not go on, and she caught up my inquiry, the impiety of which had burned my lips, as if I had spoken against the Holy Ark. “Oh, no, no, no! God will protect us! What would become of us, my poor child, what would become of us! A man such as there are not two of in the world!” Just then Louise, coming softly down, joined us, all in tears. Father was expecting me. At the door of his room I paused, heavy of heart. By that oppression I saw clearly that he was the essential actor in the inner drama of my childhood and youth, my short but already so important life. I had lived by him but I was living in opposition to him. From the day when I had withdrawn myself from his influence, through all the exaltation which had transported me and yet left me in a state of uneasiness, I had felt myself free, but out of my frame. In what condition should I find him? I was afraid, and that is why I paused for a time before opening the door. On leaving home, after having seen him cheered by the whole town, I had carried away with me the picture of my father leaning against the house, assured victor over the pestilence as long ago he had been victor over those dreaded mole-crickets, cheerfully bearing the burden of a city in distress, counting upon the future as on the past, in a word, immortal,--one to whom in his authority I could therefore give pain without scruple,--and now, in a second, I should see him--how? He was there, on the other side of that door, motionless, laid low, humiliated, no longer leading every one like a flock, fighting on his own account against the insidious disease that was consuming him. I felt a sort of terror of this inevitable contrast, mingled, I have to confess, with a personal horror of the sight of humiliation. Well, there was neither humiliation nor contrast. I went in and saw him. Stretched at full length upon the bed he seemed even taller than when standing--that was indisputable. His head was lying back upon the bolster and I was especially struck with the forehead, that broad forehead luminous with the light that sifted through the curtains. The unwonted thinness only emphasised the nobility of the features. There was no trace either of anxiety or fear, and as for suffering, if its mark was there it had brought with it no inferiority. His eyes were closed, but at times he opened them wide, almost startlingly. When had I thus seen them take on the imprint of the things at which he was gazing? Before Mélanie’s last farewell they used so to fix themselves upon my sister, upon my sister who was to go away for always, and whom he would never see again.