...of a child's passing

I had two younger brothers; both had died. They'd also lived alone in a hotel for a while, like me. One of them died when he was two, the other at three. I can particularly recall the night when the second one died; he was a good-looking boy, big and blond.
My mother was standing up, at the foot of the bed, an old bed made of dark wood. She held a lit candle in her hand and was watching the dying child. I was sitting on the floor beside her, and I could see her exhausted face, lit from below by the candle's flame. The child had one or two little convulsions, looked up with a weary, astonished expression, and died. My mother didn't move; her hand covering the flame was the only thing that was obviously trembling. Finally, she noticed me and wanted to say something (undoubtedly something like 'Logna, death is part of nature') but she just clenched her lips sadly and said nothing. She placed the dead child on his pillow, took my hand and brought me to a neighbour's house. The silence, the darkness, and his pale face, his white night-shirt and long, fine blond hair, all this I remember as it were a bewildering dream. Soon afterwards, she also died.

[The Courilof Affair, Nemirovsky, I.]