When, as often happened, a blank stare came into her eyes, and she gazed before her without seeing anything, one could detect utter, internal void through those deep bright cavities.
Nothing now remained of her former voluptuous ardour but weariness of the flesh and a senile tremor of the hands.

She had once loved like a she-wolf, but was now wasted, already sufficiently worn out for the grave.

There had been strange workings of her nerves during her long years of chastity.

A dissolute life would perhaps have wrecked her less than the slow hidden ravages of unsatisfied fever which had modified her organism.
Sometimes, even now, this moribund, pale old woman, who seemed to have no blood left in her, was seized with nervous fits like electric shocks, which galvanised her, and for an hour brought her atrocious intensity of life.

She would lie on her bed rigid, with her eyes open; then hiccoughs would come upon her and she would writhe and struggle, acquiring the frightful strength of those hysterical madwomen whom one has to tie down in order to prevent them from breaking their heads against a wall.
This return to former vigour, these sudden attacks, gave her a terrible shock.