As soon as I am there my aunt overflows with noisy tears.
Not daring to speak again, I sit down in my usual corner.
Over the bed I can make out a pointed shape, like a mounted picture, silhouetted against the curtains, which slightly blacken the window.
It is as though the quilt were lifted from underneath by a stick, for my Aunt Josephine is leanness itself.
Gradually she raises her voice and begins to lament.

"You've no feelings, no--you're heartless,--that dreadful word you said to me,--you said, 'You and your jawing!' Ah! people don't know what I have to put up with--ill-natured--cart-horse!" In silence I hear the tear-streaming words that fall and founder in the dark room from that obscure blot on the pillow which is her face.
I stand up.

I sit down again.

I risk saying, "Come now, come; that's all done with." She cries: "Done with?
Ah! it will never be done with!" With the sheet that night is begriming she muzzles herself, and hides her face.

She shakes her head to left and to right, violently, so as to wipe her eyes and signify dissent at the same time.
"Never! A word like that you said to me breaks the heart forever.