head to foot, and that the idea of a possible woe seized on you, never more to leave you.  Every moment you kept going back to the bed and raising the curtains again, hoping perhaps that you had not seen aright, or that a miracle had taken place; but you withdrew quickly, with a lump in your throat.  And yet you strove to smile, to make him smile himself; you sought to arouse in him the wish for something, but in vain; he remained motionless, exhausted, not even turning round, indifferent to all you said, to everything, even yourself.

And what is all that is needed to strike down this little creature, to reduce him to this pitch?  Only a few hours.  What, is that all that is needed to put an end to him?  Five minutes.  Perhaps.

You know that life hangs on a thread in this frail body, so little fitted to suffer.  You feel that life is only a breath, and say to yourself:  “Suppose this one is his last.”  A little while back he was complaining.  Already he does so no longer.  It seems as though someone is clasping him, bearing him away, tearing him from your arms.  Then you draw near him, and clasp him to you almost involuntarily, as though to give him back some of your own life.  His bed is damp with fever sweats, his lips are losing their color.  The nostrils of his little nose, grown sharp and dry, rise and fall.  His mouth remains wide open.  It is that little rosy mouth which used to laugh so joyfully, those are the two lips that used to press themselves to yours, and . . . all the joys, the bursts of laughter, the follies, the endless chatter, all the bygone happiness, flock to your recollection at the sound of that gasping, breathing, while big hot tears fall slowly from your eyes.  Poor wee man.  Your hand seeks his little legs, and you dare not touch his chest, which you have kissed so often, for fear of encountering that ghastly leanness which you foresee, but the contact of which would make you break out in sobs.  And then, at a certain moment, while the sunlight was flooding the room, you heard a deeper moan, resembling a cry.  You darted forward; his face was contracted, and he looked toward you with eyes that no longer saw.  And then all was calm, silent and motionless, while his hollow cheeks became yellow and transparent as the amber of his necklaces.

The recollection of that moment lasts for a lifetime in the hearts of those who have loved; and even in old age, when time has softened your grief, when other joys and other sorrows have filled your days, his dying bed still appears to you when sitting of an evening beside the fire.  You see amid the sparkling flames the room of the lost child, the table with the drinks, the bottles, the arsenal of illness, the little garments, carefully folded, that waited for him so long, his toys abandoned in a corner.  You even see the marks of his little fingers on the wall paper, and the zigzags he made with his pencil on the door; you see the corner scribbled over with lines and dates, in which he was measured every month, you see him playing, running, rushing up in a perspiration to throw himself into your arms, and, at the same time, you also see him fixing his glazing eyes on you, or motionless and cold under a white sheet, wet with holy water.