"I suspected it," said the old lady. "When you are old, old people die round you. . . ."
"Mam-ma, we should ve-ry much like . . ."
"What?"
"Adolph-ine would like it . . . and so would Ka-rel."
"What?"
"If you would take a compan-ion to live with you."
"No, no, I don't want a companion."
"Or Do-rine. She's ve-ry nice too. . . ."
"No, no. Not Dorine either."
And the old woman remained obstinate. . . . The old people were dying around her; she was constantly hearing of contemporaries who had gone before her. Her old family-doctor was dead, the man who had brought all her children into the world, in Java; now an old friend was gone; the next to go would be Henri's old mother, who had been unkind to Constance and none the less had sent for Constance to come to her. . . . Who else was gone? She couldn't remember them all: her brain was sometimes very hazy; and then she forgot names and people, just as the old sisters always forgot and muddled things. She did not want to muddle things; but she could not help forgetting.
"So I sha'n't see Constance for quite a long time?" she said to Cateau.
"Con-stance?"
