The count had clasped his hands together and, shaken by a paroxysmal shuddering, he kept crying: 

“My God!  My God!”

It was for the Marquis de Chouard, then, that the golden roses flourished on the side panels, those bunches of golden roses blooming among the golden leaves; it was for him that the Cupids leaned forth with amorous, roguish laughter from their tumbling ring on the silver trelliswork.  And it was for him that the faun at his feet discovered the nymph sleeping, tired with dalliance, the figure of Night copied down to the exaggerated thighs—­which caused her to be recognizable of all—­from Nana’s renowned nudity.  Cast there like the rag of something human which has been spoiled and dissolved by sixty years of debauchery, he suggested the charnelhouse amid the glory of the woman’s dazzling contours.  Seeing the door open, he had risen up, smitten with sudden terror as became an infirm old man.  This last night of passion had rendered him imbecile; he was entering on his second childhood; and, his speech failing him, he remained in an attitude of flight, half-paralyzed, stammering, shivering, his nightshirt half up his skeleton shape, and one leg outside the clothes, a livid leg, covered with gray hair.  Despite her vexation Nana could not keep from laughing.

“Do lie down!  Stuff yourself into the bed,” she said, pulling him back and burying him under the coverlet, as though he were some filthy thing she could not show anyone.

Then she sprang up to shut the door again.  She was decidedly never lucky with her little rough.  He was always coming when least wanted.  And why had he gone to fetch money in Normandy?  The old man had brought her the four thousand francs, and she had let him have his will of her.  She pushed back the two flaps of the door and shouted: 

“So much the worse for you!  It’s your fault.  Is that the way to come into a room?  I’ve had enough of this sort of thing.  Ta ta!”

Muffat remained standing before the closed door, thunderstruck by what he had just seen.  His shuddering fit increased.  It mounted from his feet to his heart and brain.  Then like a tree shaken by a mighty wind, he swayed to and fro and dropped on his knees, all his muscles giving way under him.  And with hands despairingly outstretched he stammered: 

“This is more than I can bear, my God!  More than I can bear!”

He had accepted every situation but he could do so no longer.  He had come to the end of his strength and was plunged in the dark void where man and his reason are together overthrown.  In an extravagant access of faith he raised his hands ever higher and higher, searching for heaven, calling on God.

“Oh no, I do not desire it!  Oh, come to me, my God!  Succor me; nay, let me die sooner!  Oh no, not that man, my God!  It is over; take me, carry me away, that I may not see, that I may not feel any longer!  Oh, I belong to you, my God!  Our Father which art in heaven—­”