"'I have never seen one or the other of them since, monsieur, and thus I have lived for the last twenty years. "'Can you imagine what all this meant to me? Can you understand this monstrous punishment, this slow perpetual laceration of a mother's heart, this abominable, endless waiting? Endless, did I say? No: it is about to end, for I am dying. I am dying without ever again seeing either of them--either one or the other! "'He--the man I loved--has written to me every day for the last twenty years; and I--I have never consented to see him, even for one second; for I had a strange feeling that, if he came back here, it would be at that very moment my son would again make his appearance! Ah! my son! my son! Is he dead? Is he living? Where is he hiding? Over there, perhaps, at the other side of the ocean, in some country so far away that even its very name is unknown to me! Does he ever think of me? Ah! if he only knew! How cruel children are! Did he understand to what frightful suffering he condemned me, into what depths of despair, into what tortures, he cast me while I was still in the prime of life, leaving me to suffer like this even to this moment, when I am going to die--me, his mother, who loved him with all the violence of a mother's love! Oh! isn't it cruel, cruel? "'You will tell him all this, monsieur--will you not? You will repeat for him my last words: "'My child, my dear, dear child, be less harsh towards poor women! Life is already brutal and savage enough in its dealings with them. My dear son, think of what the existence of your poor mother has been ever since the day when you left her. My dear child, forgive her, and love her, now that she is dead, for she has had to endure the most frightful penance ever inflicted on a woman.' "She gasped for breath, shuddering, as if she had addressed the last words to her son and as if he stood by her bedside. "Then she added: "'You will tell him also, monsieur, that I never again saw--the other.' "Once more she ceased speaking, then, in a broken voice she said: "'Leave me now, I beg of you. I want to die all alone, since they are not with me.'" Maitre Le Brument added: "And I left the house, messieurs, crying like a fool, so vehemently, indeed, that my coachman turned round to stare at me. "And to think that, every day, heaps of dramas like this are being enacted all around us! "I have not found the son--that son--well, say what you like about him, but I call him that criminal son!" THE SPASM The hotel-guests slowly entered the dining-room, and sat down in their places. The waiters began to attend on them in a leisurely fashion so as to enable those who were late to arrive, and so as to avoid bringing back the dishes; and the old bathers, the _habitues_, those whose season was advancing, gazed with interest towards the door, whenever it opened, with a desire to see new faces appearing.