The malady was an extremely infectious form of galloping
consumption, the more violent since it had found in the patient a field
where there was little to resist its onslaught. Beauchene was away from
home, travelling as usual. Constance, for her part, in spite of the grave
mien of the doctors, who could not bring themselves to tell her the
brutal truth, remained, in spite of growing anxiety, full of a stubborn
hope that her son, the hero, the demi-god necessary for her own life,
could not be seriously ill and likely to die. But only three days
elapsed, and during the very night that Beauchene returned home, summoned
by a telegram, the young fellow expired in her arms.
In reality his death was simply the final decomposition of impoverished,
tainted, bourgeois blood, the sudden disappearance of a poor, mediocre
being who, despite a facade of seeming health, had been ailing since
childhood. But what an overwhelming blow it was both for the mother and
for the father, all whose dreams and calculations it swept away! The only
son, the one and only heir, the prince of industry, whom they had desired
with such obstinate, scheming egotism, had passed away like a shadow;
their arms clasped but a void, and the frightful reality arose before
them; a moment had sufficed, and they were childless.
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