GERMINAL
ing between the fire-place and the cupboard, without turning his head.
But the door opened, and this time it was Doctor Vanderhagen.
"The devil!" he said. "This light won't spoil your eyes. Look sharp! I'm in a hurry."
As usual, he scolded, knocked up by work. Fortunately, he had matches with him, and the father had to strike six, one by one, and to hold them while he examined the invalid. Unwound from her coverlet, she shivered beneath this flickering light, as lean as a bird in agony in the snow, so small that one only saw her hump. But she smiled with the wandering smile of the dying, and her eyes were very large; while her poor hands were shrivelled over her hollow breast. And as the half-choked mother asked if it was right to take away from her the only child who helped in the household, so intelligent and gentle, the doctor grew vexed.
"Ah! she is going. Dead of hunger, your blessed child. And not the only one, either; I've just seen another one over there. You all send for me, but I can't do anything; it's meat that you want to cure you."
Maheu, with burning fingers, had dropped the match, and the darkness fell back over the little corpse, which was still warm. The doctor had gone away in a hurry. Étienne heard nothing more in the black room but Maheude's sobs, repeating her cry for death, that melancholy and endless lamentation:
"Oh! God! it is my turn, take me! Oh! God! take my man, take the others, out of pity, to have done with it!"
[355]
