As soon as he had left the room the dying man, who was panting for breath, strove to hold out his two hands to his wife, and gasped, “Save me—save me, darling, I don’t want to die—I don’t want to die. Oh! save me—tell me what I had better do; send for the doctor. I will take whatever you like. I won’t die—I won’t die.”
He wept. Big tears streamed from his eyes down his fleshless cheeks, and the corners of his mouth contracted like those of a vexed child. Then his hands, falling back on the bed clothes, began a slow, regular, and continuous movement, as though trying to pick something off the sheet.
His wife, who began to cry too, said: “No, no, it is nothing. It is only a passing attack, you will be better tomorrow, you tired yourself too much going out yesterday.”
Forestier’s breathing was shorter than that of a dog who has been running, so quick that it could not be counted, so faint that it could scarcely be heard.
He kept repeating: “I don’t want to die. Oh! God—God—God; what is to become of me? I shall no longer see anything—anything any more. Oh! God.”
He saw before him some hideous thing invisible to the others, and his staring eyes reflected the terror it inspired. His two hands continued their horrible and wearisome action. All at once he started with a sharp shudder that could be seen to thrill the whole of his body, and jerked out the words, “The graveyard—I—Oh! God.”
He said no more, but lay motionless, haggard and panting.
Time sped on, noon struck by the clock of a neighboring convent. Duroy left the room to eat a mouthful or two. He came back an hour later. Madame Forestier refused to take anything. The invalid had not