However, as Pierre sat down again, he saw that Marie was very pale, and
had her eyes closed. By the painful contraction of her features he could
tell that she was not asleep. "Are you in great suffering?" he asked.
"Yes, yes, I suffer dreadfully. I shall never last to the end. It is this
incessant jolting."
She moaned, raised her eyelids, and, half-fainting, remained in a sitting
posture, her eyes turned on the other sufferers. In the adjoining
compartment, La Grivotte, hitherto stretched out, scarce breathing, like
a corpse, had just raised herself up in front of M. Sabathier. She was a
tall, slip-shod, singular-looking creature of over thirty, with a round,
ravaged face, which her frizzy hair and flaming eyes rendered almost
pretty. She had reached the third stage of phthisis.
"Eh, mademoiselle," she said, addressing herself in a hoarse, indistinct
voice to Marie, "how nice it would be if we could only doze off a little.
But it can't be managed; all these wheels keep on whirling round and
round in one's head."
Then, although it fatigued her to speak, she obstinately went on talking,
volunteering particulars about herself. She was a mattress-maker, and
with one of her aunts had long gone from yard to yard at Bercy to comb
and sew up mattresses. And, indeed, it was to the pestilential wool which
she had combed in her youth that she ascribed her malady. For five years
she had been making the round of the hospitals of Paris, and she spoke
familiarly of all the great doctors.
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