Page 426 - les-miserables

CHAPTER VI

SISTER SIMPLICE PUT

TO THE PROOF

But at that moment Fantine was joyous.
She had passed a very bad night; her cough was fright-
ful; her fever had doubled in intensity; she had had dreams:
in the morning, when the doctor paid his visit, she was de-
lirious; he assumed an alarmed look, and ordered that he
should be informed as soon as M. Madeleine arrived.
All the morning she was melancholy, said but little,
and laid plaits in her sheets, murmuring the while, in a
low voice, calculations which seemed to be calculations of
distances. Her eyes were hollow and staring. They seemed
almost extinguished at intervals, then lighted up again and
shone like stars. It seems as though, at the approach of a
certain dark hour, the light of heaven fills those who are
quitting the light of earth.
Each time that Sister Simplice asked her how she felt, she
replied invariably, ‘Well. I should like to see M. Madeleine.’
Some months before this, at the moment when Fantine
had just lost her last modesty, her last shame, and her last

426 Les Miserables