At first he thought she had smothered herself.  Then, taking her by the shoulders, he turned her over without her leaving go of the pillow, which covered her face, and in which she had set her teeth to keep herself from crying out.

But the mere touch of this rigid form, of those arms so convulsively clinched, communicated to him the shock of her unspeakable torture.  The strength and determination with which she clutched the linen case full of feathers with her hands and teeth, over her mouth and eyes and ears, that he might neither see her nor speak to her, gave him an idea, by the turmoil it roused in him, of the pitch suffering may rise to, and his heart, his simple heart, was torn with pity.  He was no judge, not he; not even a merciful judge; he was a man full of weakness and a son full of love.  He remembered nothing of what his brother had told him; he neither reasoned nor argued, he merely laid his two hands on his mother’s inert body, and not being able to pull the pillow away, he exclaimed, kissing her dress: 

“Mother, mother, my poor mother, look at me!”

She would have seemed to be dead but that an almost imperceptible shudder ran through all her limbs, the vibration of a strained cord.  And he repeated: 

“Mother, mother, listen to me.  It is not true.  I know that it is not true.”

A spasm seemed to come over her, a fit of suffocation; then she suddenly began to sob into the pillow.  Her sinews relaxed, her rigid muscles yielded, her fingers gave way and left go of the linen; and he uncovered her face.

She was pale, quite colourless; and from under her closed lids tears were stealing.  He threw his arms round her neck and kissed her eyes, slowly, with long heart-broken kisses, wet with her tears; and he said again and again: 

“Mother, my dear mother, I know it is not true.  Do not cry; I know it.  It is not true.”

She raised herself, she sat up, looked in his face, and with an effort of courage such as it must cost in some cases to kill one’s self, she said: 

“No, my child; it is true.”

And they remained speechless, each in the presence of the other.  For some minutes she seemed again to be suffocating, craning her throat and throwing back her head to get breath; then she once more mastered herself and went on: 

“It is true, my child.  Why lie about it?  It is true.  You would not believe me if I denied it.”

She looked like a crazy creature.  Overcome by alarm, he fell on his knees by the bedside, murmuring: 

“Hush, mother, be silent.”  She stood up with terrible determination and energy.

“I have nothing more to say, my child.  Good-bye.”  And she went towards the door.

He threw his arms about her exclaiming: 

“What are you doing, mother; where are you going?”

“I do not know.  How should I know—­There is nothing left for me to do, now that I am alone.”