the sufferer, and this one proved almost immediately fatal. The dying woman was able to open her eyes and look on her son once more—and that was all. With a choking heart Dumas sent word of the event to his young patron, and an hour later the kindly duke was at the street door in his carriage. The mourner ran out, at this sign of friendly sympathy, and kneeling at the prince's feet, burst into tears. There was remorse mingled with grief in this passion of regret for the life that was passing away in the room above, for although Alexandre had usually visited his mother constantly, and shown her every loving mark of affection, there had also been periods of absence and neglect, which now he regretted only too keenly.
At the foot of the sketch of his dead mother, which Duval drew, Dumas wrote these lines
"Oh, mon Dieu! Dans ce monde où toute bouche nic,
Où chacun foule aux pieds les Tables de la Loi,
Vous m'avez entendu, pendant son agonie,
Prier à deux genoux, le cour ardent de foi.
Vous m'avez vu, mon Dieu, sur la funèbre route,
Où la mort me courbait devant un crucifix,
Et vous avez compté les pleurs qui, goutte à goutte,
Ruisselaient de mes yeux aux pieds de Votre Fils.
Je demandais, mon Dieu, que moins vite ravie,
Vous retardiez l'instant de son dernier adieu:
Pour racheter ses jours je vous offrais ma vie;
Vous n'avez pas voulu: soyez béni, mon Dieu!"[1]
- ↑ ("Oh, my God, in this world, where all men deny Thee, where the feet of men spurn the Tables of Thy Laws, Thou hast beard me, as I
