She was suffering from a frightful disease.

The disappearance from her system of the calcareous salts had led to a softening of the osseous framework, the slow destruction of her bones.

Three years previously, after the advent of a stillborn child, she had felt vague pains in the spinal column.

And then, little by little, her bones had rarefied and lost shape, the vertebrae had sunk, the bones of the pelvis had flattened, and those of the arms and legs had contracted.

Thus shrunken, melting away as it were, she had become a mere human remnant, a nameless, fluid thing, which could not be set erect, but had to be carried hither and thither with infinite care, for fear lest she should vanish between one's fingers.