Caravan did not utter a word, and at that moment the little servant came in to announce dinner.  In order to let his mother know, he took a broom-handle, which always stood in a corner, and rapped loudly on the ceiling three times, and they went into the dining-room.  Madame Caravan, junior, helped the soup, and waited for the old woman, but she did not come, and the soup was getting cold, so they began to eat slowly, and when their plates were empty, they waited again, and Madame Caravan, who was furious, attacked her husband: 

“She does it on purpose, you know that as well as I do.  But you always uphold her.”

He, in great perplexity between the two, sent Marie-Louise to fetch her grandmother, and he sat motionless, with his eyes down, while his wife tapped her glass angrily with her knife.  In about a minute, the door flew open suddenly, and the child came in again, out of breath and very pale, and said very quickly: 

“Grandmamma has fallen down on the ground.”

Caravan jumped up, threw his table-napkin down, and rushed upstairs, while his wife, who thought it was some trick of her mother-in-law’s, followed more slowly, shrugging her shoulders, as if to express her doubt.  When they got upstairs, however, they found the old woman lying at full length in the middle of the room, and when they turned her over they saw that she was insensible and motionless, while her skin looked more wrinkled and yellow than usual, and her eyes were closed, her teeth clenched, and her thin body was stiff.

Caravan knelt down by her, and began to moan: 

“My poor mother! my poor mother!” he said.  But the other Madame Caravan said: 

“Bah!  She has only fainted again, that is all, and she has done it to prevent us from dining comfortably, you may be sure of that.”

They put her on the bed, undressed her completely, and Caravan, his wife, and the servant began to rub her, but, in spite of their efforts, she did not recover consciousness, so they sent Rosalie, the servant, to fetch Doctor Chenet.  He lived a long way off, on the quay going towards Suresnes, and so it was considerable time before he arrived.  He came at last, however, and, after having looked at the old woman, felt her pulse, auscultated her, he said:—­“It is all over.”

Caravan threw himself on the body, sobbing violently; he kissed his mother’s rigid face, and wept so, that great tears fell on the dead woman’s face, like drops of water, and, naturally, Madame Caravan, Junior, showed a decorous amount of grief, and uttered feeble moans, as she stood behind her husband, while she rubbed her eyes vigorously.

But, suddenly, Caravan raised himself up, with his thin hair in disorder, and, looking very ugly in his grief, said:—­

“But ... are you sure, doctor?...  Are you quite sure?...”

The medical stooped over the body, and, handling it with professional dexterity, like a shopkeeper might do, when showing off his goods, he said:—­“See, my dear friend, look at her eye.”