And it typified the victory
of fruitfulness; it was the child's child, it was Marianne reviving in
her son's daughter. A grandmother already, and she was only forty-one
years old! Marianne had smiled at that thought. But the hatchet-stroke
rang out yet more frightfully in Constance's heart. In her case the tree
was cut down to its very root, the sole scion had been lopped off, and
none would ever sprout again.
For yet another moment she remained alone amid that nothingness, in that
room where lay her son's remains. Then she made up her mind and passed
into the drawing-room, with the air of a frozen spectre. They all rose,
kissed her, and shivered as their lips touched her cold cheeks, which her
blood was unable to warm. Profound compassion wrung them, so frightful
was her calmness. And they sought kind words to say to her, but she
curtly stopped them.
"It is all over," said she; "there is nothing to be said. Everything is
ended, quite ended."
Madame Angelin sobbed, Angelin himself wiped his poor fixed, blurred
eyes. Marianne and Mathieu shed tears while retaining Constance's hands
in theirs. And she, rigid and still unable to weep, refused consolation,
repeating in monotonous accents: "It is finished; nothing can give him
back to me.
Pages:
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425