The lips quivered, but no sound could get out. Everything in her throat was dry, no doubt. With a sort of desperation, Joseph sensed that everything was going to escape him. The moment he had so much longed for, the ineffable instant when mind topples and rejoins matter, was going to be lost in the distance. A whole life, seventy-five years of fatigue and enjoyment, peace and unhappiness, would dissolve into smoke, useless, abandoned. Joseph bent close to the old woman’s face and looked at her with implacable resolution. But nothing came. Suddenly he had a brilliant idea; if she couldn’t speak any longer, perhaps she could write? With feverish gestures, Joseph tore off a piece of paper from the wrapping round the string beans; with great care he placed a ball-point pencil between the limp fingers and holding the paper steady, he said rapidly:
‘Mademoiselle Maria? You hear me, don’t you? Write. Write what you’re feeling. I want you to. Write. I’ll help you to write. Will you do it? Do you hear me? Write. Please write.’
The old hand began to move, falteringly; slowly, awkwardly, the ball-point wrote letters, one after another, capital letters. Then, when it was finished, the hand fell down and dangled for a moment, with open fingers. Across the piece of greyish paper spawled a line of funny-looking black letters. They read:
I’M CO
L
D
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