She repeated, “Olivier! My God! Olivier, what’s the matter? Shall I call—
He heard her this time, for he answered, “No . . . it’s nothing.”
He seemed, indeed, to grow quieter, to suffer less, to fall all at once into a sort of drowsy stupor. Hoping he would fall asleep, she sat down again near the bed, took his hand once more, and waited. He no longer moved, his chin on his breast, his mouth half opened by his short breathing, which seemed to rasp his throat as it passed. His fingers alone unconsciously stirred now and then with light twitches which the countess felt to the roots of her hair, so painfully that she could almost cry out.
They were no longer the little voluntary pressures which, instead of the tired lips, told all the sadness of their hearts; they were involuntary spasms that spoke only of the body’s torment.
Now she was afraid, frightfully afraid, and was possessed with a wild desire to go away, to ring, to call, but she dared not stir, lest she might trouble his repose.
The far-off noise of carriages in the streets came through the walls, and she listened to detect whether the rumbling of the wheels stopped before the door, whether her husband was coming to liberate her, to tear her away at last from this sinister tête-à-tête.
As she tried to disengage her hand from Olivier’s, he pressed it, uttering a long sigh. Then she resigned herself to wait, to not disturb him.
The fire was dying out on the hearth under the black ashes of the letters; two candles went out; a piece of furniture cracked.
In the building all was silent, everything seemed dead except the tall Flemish clock in the hall, which regularly chimed out the hour, half hour, and quarter hour, singing the march of Time in the night, modulating it on its different tones.
The countess, motionless, felt an intolerable terror growing in her soul; she was assailed by nightmares; frightful thoughts filled her mind, and she fancied she noticed that Olivier’s fingers were growing cold in hers. Was it true? No, surely. Yet whence had that sensation of an inexpressible and frozen contact come? She raised herself up, distracted with terror, to look at his face. It had relaxed; it was impassive, inanimate, indifferent to all misery, suddenly calmed by Eternal Oblivion.
Guy de Maupassant, Like Death
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