The tales which are related here are all falsehoods;
there is /nothing/, she does not even exist, since she does not hear when
one speaks to her, and sobs. If you only knew all that I said to her! Oh!
I want to go away at once. Take me away, carry me away in your arms, so
that I may go and die in the street, where the passers-by, at least, will
take pity on my sufferings!"
She was growing weak again, and had once more fallen on her back,
stammering, talking childishly. "Besides, nobody loves me," she said. "My
father was not even there. And you, my friend, forsook me. When I saw
that it was another who was taking me to the piscinas, I began to feel a
chill. Yes, that chill of doubt which I often felt in Paris. And that is
at least certain, I doubted--perhaps, indeed, that is why she did not
cure me. I cannot have prayed well enough, I am not pious enough, no
doubt."
She was no longer blaspheming, but seeking for excuses to explain the
non-intervention of Heaven. However, her face retained an angry
expression amidst this struggle which she was waging with the Supreme
Power, that Power which she had loved so well and entreated so fervently,
but which had not obeyed her. When, on rare occasions, a fit of rage of
this description broke out in the ward, and the sufferers, lying on their
beds, rebelled against their fate, sobbing and lamenting, and at times
even swearing, the lady-hospitallers and the Sisters, somewhat shocked,
would content themselves with simply closing the bed-curtains.
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