Thanks to the negligence of the
administrative committee, this fraud had been constantly successful. The
old lady, humbled utterly by her child's crime, had at once cried out
in anger against Nana. She knew Philippe's connection with her, and her
melancholy had been the result of this miserable state of things which
kept her in Paris in constant dread of some final catastrophe. But
she had never looked forward to such shame as this, and now she blamed
herself for refusing him money, as though such refusal had made her
accessory to his act. She sank down on an armchair; her legs were seized
with paralysis, and she felt herself to be useless, incapable of action
and destined to stay where she was till she died. But the sudden thought
of Georges comforted her. Georges was still left her; he would be able
to act, perhaps to save them. Thereupon, without seeking aid of anyone
else--for she wished to keep these matters shrouded in the bosom of her
family--she dragged herself up to the next story, her mind possessed by
the idea that she still had someone to love about her. But upstairs she
found an empty room. The porter told her that M. Georges had gone out
at an early hour. The room was haunted by the ghost of yet another
calamity; the bed with its gnawed bedclothes bore witness to someone's
anguish, and a chair which lay amid a heap of clothes on the ground
looked like something dead.
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