When Cecile told her that her visitor was M. Froment, the former chief designer at the Beauchene works, she did not even seem to recognize him; she no longer took interest in anything.  And when her sister spoke of the object of her visit, asking for the work with which she had entrusted her, she answered with a gesture of utter weariness:  “Oh! what can you expect!  It takes me too long to stick all those little bits of cardboard together.  I can’t do it; it throws me into a perspiration.”

Then a stout woman, who was cutting some bread and butter for the three children, intervened with an air of quiet authority:  “You ought to take those materials away, Mademoiselle Cecile.  She’s incapable of doing anything with them.  They will end by getting dirty, and then your people won’t take them back.”

This stout woman was a certain Madame Joseph, a widow of forty and a charwoman by calling, whom Benard, the husband, had at first engaged to come two hours every morning to attend to the housework, his wife not having strength enough to put on a child’s shoes or to set a pot on the fire.  At first Euphrasie had offered furious resistance to this intrusion of a stranger, but, her physical decline progressing, she had been obliged to yield.  And then things had gone from bad to worse, till Madame Joseph became supreme in the household.  Between times there had been terrible scenes over it all; but the wretched Euphrasie, stammering and shivering, had at last resigned herself to the position, like some little old woman sunk into second childhood and already cut off from the world.  That Benard and Madame Joseph were not bad-hearted in reality was shown by the fact that although Euphrasie was now but an useless encumbrance, they kept her with them, instead of flinging her into the streets as others would have done.

“Why, there you are again in the middle of the room!” suddenly exclaimed the fat woman, who each time that she went hither and thither found it necessary to avoid the other’s chair.  “How funny it is that you can never put yourself in a corner!  Auguste will be coming in for his four o’clock snack in a moment, and he won’t be at all pleased if he doesn’t find his cheese and his glass of wine on the table.”

Without replying, Euphrasie nervously staggered to her feet, and with the greatest trouble dragged her chair towards the table.  Then she sat down again limp and very weary.

Just as Madame Joseph was bringing the cheese, Benard, whose workshop was near by, made his appearance.  He was still a full-bodied, jovial fellow, and began to jest with his sister-in-law while showing great politeness towards Mathieu, whom he thanked for taking interest in his unhappy wife’s condition. “Mon Dieu, monsieur,” said he, “it isn’t her fault; it is all due to those rascally doctors at the hospital.  For a year or so one might have thought her cured, but you see what has now become of her.  Ah! it ought not to be allowed!  You are no doubt aware that they treated Cecile just the same.  And there was another, too, a baroness, whom you must know.  She called here the other day to see Euphrasie, and, upon my word, I didn’t recognize her.  She used to be such a fine woman, and now she looks a hundred years old.  Yes, yes, I say that the doctors ought to be sent to prison.”