everything save the tragic scene being enacted on the other side of the closed door. The odour of the anaesthetic stifled her, choked her, made her want to cry out in suffocation. The feeble little cries and groans as Jean slowly passed into unconsciousness made her frantic. She wanted to burst open the door, snatch him from the cruel knives, take him and the two of them plunge to simultaneous death in the waters of the river nearby. The immaculate nurses who passed rapidly infuriated her, they seemed so calm, so callous. She wanted to seize them and shake them until their teeth rattled, screaming: “Don’t you realize that my Jean— mon pauvre Petit Jean—is being cut to pieces in there!” … She wanted to do all these things but she did none of them. She paced frantically back and forth, back and forth, for hours, days, centuries, past the closed door …
“Operation’s a success—he’s resting easily—won’t know until a day or two. …” The words came to her as from a great distance. “You’d better go home—there’s no good you can do here—it’ll be half an hour or so before he comes out from under the anaesthetic … and then he’ll probably sleep. …”