A woman puts a log in the fire, in the center of the dazzling cluster of snarling flames, whose light throws the room into total agitation.
* * * * * * For a long time I look upon that face, where ugliness and goodness are mingled in such a heartrending way.

My eyes seek those already almost shut, whose light is hardening.

Something of darkness, an internal shadow which is of herself, overspreads and disfigures her.

One may see now how outworn she was, how miraculously she still held on.
This tortured and condemned woman is all that has looked after me for twenty years.

For twenty years she took my hand before she took my arm.