The Three Cities Trilogy

Meantime Madame Vetu Was Expiring In The Adjoining Bed. They Had Not Dared To Take Her To The Grotto, For Fear They Should See Her Die On The Way. For Some Little Time She Had Lain There With Her Eyes Closed; And Sister Hyacinthe, Who Was Watching, Had Beckoned To Madame Desagneaux In Order To Acquaint Her With The Bad Opinion She Had Formed Of The Case. Both Of Them Were Now Leaning Over The Dying Woman, Observing Her With Increasing Anxiety. The Mask Upon Her Face Had Turned More Yellow Than Ever, And Now Looked Like A Coating Of Mud; Her Eyes Too Had Become More Sunken, Her Lips Seemed To Have Grown Thinner, And The Death Rattle Had Begun, A Slow, Pestilential Wheezing, Polluted By The Cancer Which Was Finishing Its Destructive Work. All At Once She Raised Her Eyelids, And Was Seized With Fear On Beholding Those Two Faces Bent Over Her Own. Could Her Death Be Near, That They Should Thus Be Gazing At Her? Immense Sadness Showed Itself In Her Eyes, A Despairing Regret Of Life. It Was Not A Vehement Revolt, For She No Longer Had The Strength To Struggle; But What A Frightful Fate It Was To Have Left Her Shop, Her Surroundings, And Her Husband, Merely To Come And Die So Far Away; To Have Braved The Abominable Torture Of Such A Journey, To Have Prayed Both Day And Night, And Then, Instead Of Having Her Prayer Granted, To Die When Others Recovered!