Suddenly their mother died - a shock that stunned them. Thinking her immortal, they had treated her with scant consideration; but nevertheless they loved her. To make matters worse, they felt they were to blame; for she had died all unbeknown to them, while they were quarrelling in her room, the very evening when Paul got up for the first time.
The nurse was in the kitchen. The row degenerated into an exchange of blows; with cheeks aflame, Elisabeth had fled to seek sanctuary beside her mother's chair. She found herself confronted by an unknown woman staring at her with wide open tragic eyes and mouth.
She had been surprised by death, perpetuated in such a pose as death alone conceives of: hands clenched, arms rigid along the chair-arms. The doctor had foreseen that the end would come without warning; but the children, alone, transfixed by this sudden counterfeit, this puppet in place of a live person, this stranger with the mask of a sculptured sage, gazed on it livid, stone-still before its petrified stare, it's cry of stone.
[Les Enfants Terribles, Cocteau, J]
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