Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/78

white-shrouded corpses tearing with gnarled fingers the hair from their fleshless skulls; her own mother lying dead under a white sheet, stretched out on the floor, the candles at her head flare and splutter-like the gaslight in this room. "Look at your mother for the last time. . ." Her father draws back the sheet from the dead face.

Anna stared at her cousin. Her features had grown rigid. The lips were locked tight, her forehead sunken. Had life departed from her, too? Maybe I myself am dead? Anna thought wildly. She lifted her arm-and was astonished at her own movement. She wanted to make a sound, but her tongue seemed paralyzed. Then she saw Gertrude's closed eyelids flicker faintly.

"Anna, are you still here?" the voice came suddenly like a reassuring beam of light. In a moment the flame of the gaslight seemed to dance joyously, the tick of the clock to beat with new-found hope. Anna bent over the wash-tub and scrubbed the soaking laundry clean. Ah, how much beauty there was in each little garment, in Gertrude's plaintive voice, in the quiet breathing of the sleeping children!

• * *

When Morris Berger came home he found the clothes hanging on the line across the room, the floor freshly scrubbed, and Gertrude sleeping soundly. At the foot of the bed Anna, fully dressed. He wet a towel and washed the perspiration from his face. Then he took off his shoes, lit his pipe, and sat down beside the open window.

An octagonal patch of sky, like a crudely cut pattern, swam in the distance. The cool morning air enveloped him, bathed his limbs in a pleasant languor. The pipe between his teeth burned out. It seemed that somehow what he saw was not real. It was more like a grotesque painting, an undisciplined