“Is that you?  I’m glad of it,” muttered Antoine.  “I’m growing deuced cold here.  Have you got the money?”

But Pierre did not reply.  He had just perceived his son Pascal leaning over the bed.  And thereupon he questioned him eagerly.  The doctor, surprised by his uneasiness, which he attributed to paternal affection, told him that the soldiers had taken him and would have shot him, had it not been for the intervention of some honest fellow whom he did not know.  Saved by his profession of surgeon, he had returned to Plassans with the troops.  This greatly relieved Rougon.  So there was yet another who would not compromise him.  He was evincing his delight by repeated hand-shakings, when Pascal concluded in a sorrowful voice:  “Oh! don’t make merry.  I have just found my poor grandmother in a very dangerous state.  I brought her back this carbine, which she values very much; I found her lying here, and she has not moved since.”

Pierre’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the dimness.  In the fast fading light he saw aunt Dide stretched, rigid and seemingly lifeless, upon her bed.  Her wretched frame, attacked by neurosis from the hour of birth, was at length laid prostrate by a supreme shock.  Her nerves had so to say consumed her blood.  Moreover some cruel grief seemed to have suddenly accelerated her slow wasting-away.  Her pale nun-like face, drawn and pinched by a life of gloom and cloister-like self-denial, was now stained with red blotches.  With convulsed features, eyes that glared terribly, and hands twisted and clenched, she lay at full length in her skirts, which failed to hide the sharp outlines of her scrawny limbs.  Extended there with lips closely pressed she imparted to the dim room all the horror of a mute death-agony.

Rougon made a gesture of vexation.  This heart-rending spectacle was very distasteful to him.  He had company coming to dinner in the evening, and it would be extremely inconvenient for him to have to appear mournful.  His mother was always doing something to bother him.  She might just as well have chosen another day.  However, he put on an appearance of perfect ease, as he said:  “Bah! it’s nothing.  I’ve seen her like that a hundred times.  You must let her lie still; it’s the only thing that does her any good.”

Pascal shook his head.  “No, this fit isn’t like the others,” he whispered.  “I have often studied her, and have never observed such symptoms before.  Just look at her eyes:  there is a peculiar fluidity, a pale brightness about them which causes me considerable uneasiness.  And her face, how frightfully every muscle of it is distorted!”

Then bending over to observe her features more closely, he continued in a whisper, as though speaking to himself:  “I have never seen such a face, excepting among people who have been murdered or have died from fright.  She must have experienced some terrible shock.”

“But how did the attack begin?” Rougon impatiently inquired, at a loss for an excuse to leave the room.