Page 2206 - les-miserables

CHAPTER XII

THE GRANDFATHER

Basque and the porter had carried Marius into the draw-
ing-room, as he still lay stretched out, motionless, on the
sofa upon which he had been placed on his arrival. The
doctor who had been sent for had hastened thither. Aunt
Gillenormand had risen.
Aunt Gillenormand went and came, in affright, wring-
ing her hands and incapable of doing anything but saying:
‘Heavens! is it possible?’ At times she added: ‘Everything
will be covered with blood.’ When her first horror had
passed off, a certain philosophy of the situation penetrated
her mind, and took form in the exclamation: ‘It was bound
to end in this way!’ She did not go so far as: ‘I told you so!’
which is customary on this sort of occasion. At the physi-
cian’s orders, a camp bed had been prepared beside the sofa.
The doctor examined Marius, and after having found that
his pulse was still beating, that the wounded man had no
very deep wound on his breast, and that the blood on the
corners of his lips proceeded from his nostrils, he had him
placed flat on the bed, without a pillow, with his head on
the same level as his body, and even a trifle lower, and with

2206 Les Miserables