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 SECOND EDITION

sed & awk

Pocket Reference

Arnold Robbins

Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Paris • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo

sed & awk Pocket Reference, Second Edition
by Arnold Robbins

Copyright © 2002, 2000 O’Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North,
Sebastopol, CA 95472.
O’Reilly Media, Inc. books may be purchased for educational,
business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available
for most titles (safari.oreilly.com). For more information, contact our
corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or
corporate@oreilly.com.

Editor: Chuck Toporek

Production Editor: Jane Ellin
Cover Designer: Ellie Volckhausen
Interior Designer: David Futato

Printing History:
January 2000: First Edition.
June 2002: Second Edition.

Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly

logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. The Pocket
Reference series designation, sed & awk Pocket Reference, Second
Edition, the image of slender lorises, and related trade dress are
trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by
manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as
trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly
Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been
printed in caps or initial caps. While every precaution has been taken in
the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no
responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the
use of the information contained herein.

0-596-00352-8
[C] [7/05]
 Contents

Introduction 1
Conventions Used in This Book 1
Matching Text 2
Filenames Versus Patterns 2
Metacharacters 3
Metacharacters, Listed by Unix Program 5
Examples of Searching 7
The sed Editor 10
Command-Line Syntax 11
Syntax of sed Commands 12
Group Summary of sed Commands 13
Alphabetical Summary of sed Commands 15
The awk Programming Language 18
Command-Line Syntax 20
Important gawk Options 21
Profiling with pgawk 23
Patterns and Procedures 24
Built-in Variables 26
Operators 28
Variable and Array Assignment 29
Octal and Hexadecimal Constants in gawk 30
User-Defined Functions 31

v
 Group Listing of awk Functions and Commands 32
Coprocesses and Sockets with gawk 33
Implementation Limits 34
Alphabetical Summary of awk Functions and Commands 34
Internationalization with gawk 44
Additional Resources 45
Source Code 45
Books 46

vi | Contents
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 Her voice had such accents of terror, her reticences were so
sad, that I began to tremble like a leaf, seized by a sort of panic, still
without understanding what she meant.
"Well?"
"They will be all there; they will be around me.... You
understand? You understand? One word would be enough. One
never knows what one says when delirious. You should..."
At that moment my mother, the doctor, and the midwife arrived.
"Ah! doctor," sighed Juliana, "I thought I was dying."
"Nonsense!" said the doctor in a reassuring voice. "There is no
danger. Everything will be all right."
And he looked at me.
"Your husband," he went on, smiling, "looks worse than you
do."
And he showed me the door, saying:
"Go! You can be of no assistance here."
I glanced at my mother's eyes. She seemed restless, anxious,
compassionate.
"Yes, Tullio," she said. "It will be better for you to go. Federico is
downstairs waiting for you."
I looked at Juliana. Without concerning herself with the others
present, she fixed on me her large eyes, which were animated with
an extraordinary brilliancy. They expressed all the passion of a
despairing soul.
"I will not leave the adjoining room," I declared resolutely,
without removing my gaze from Juliana.
As I turned to go out I noticed the midwife disposing the pillows
on the bed of pain, on the bed of misery, and I shuddered as if from
a breath of death.
 XXXI.

It was between four and five o'clock in the morning. The pains had
lasted until then, with a few intermissions of relief. I was lying on the
lounge in the adjoining room, and about three o'clock sleep had
overcome me unexpectedly. Cristina awoke me; she told me that
Juliana wished to see me.
My eyes still heavy from sleep, I started to my feet.
"Was I asleep? What has happened?"
"Do not be alarmed, signor. Nothing has happened. The pains
are easier. Come and see her."
I entered, and my eyes immediately sought Juliana.
She was supported by pillows, pale as her night-dress, almost
lifeless. Her eyes at once met mine, because they were turned
toward the door, in the expectation of my coming. Her eyes
appeared larger, deeper, hollower, surrounded by a wider, dark
shadow.
"You see," she said in an exhausted voice, "it is still the same."
Her gaze did not leave me. Her eyes spoke, like those of the
Princess Lisa: "I hoped you would help me; but you do not help me,
either."
"Where is the doctor?" I asked my mother, who seemed sad and
preoccupied.
She pointed to a door. I opened it, and passed through. I saw
the doctor near a table busy with his preparations.
 "Well," I asked him abruptly, "how is it?"
"Nothing serious so far."
"And all these preparations?"
"To be on the safe side."
"But how long will it last?"
"It is nearly over."
"Please speak frankly. Do you expect any complication?"
"At present there are no serious symptoms. Have confidence in
me, and be calm. I have noticed that your presence greatly excites
your wife. During the short period of the final pains, she needs all
the strength she has. It is absolutely necessary that you go away.
Promise me to do this. You may return when I call you."
A moan reached us.
"The pains are beginning again," he said. "The crisis has come.
So be calm."
He went toward the door. I followed him. We both went up to
Juliana. She seized my arm, and her clutch was like a bite. Had she
so much strength left?
"Be brave! be brave! This is the last. All will be well. Is it not so,
doctor?" I stammered.
"Yes, yes. There is no time to lose. Let your husband leave the
room, signora."
She looked at the doctor and me with dilated eyes. She released
my arm.
"Courage!" I repeated, choking.
I kissed her forehead, moist with perspiration, and turned to
leave.
"Ah! Tullio!" she cried, behind me.
 That heart-breaking cry signified: "I shall never see you again."
I made a movement as if about to return to her.
"Leave the room!" ordered the doctor imperiously.
I obeyed him. Some one shut the door behind me. I remained
several minutes outside, listening; but my knees trembled; the
beating of my heart dominated every other sound. I threw myself on
the sofa, put my handkerchief between my teeth, buried my face in
a cushion. I, too, suffered physical torture, similar to what an
amputation, slowly and badly done, must be.
I could not make a step. Several minutes passed—an
incalculable time. Thoughts and images furrowed my brain like
sudden flashes. "Is he born? Suppose she is dead? Suppose they are
both dead, mother and child? No, no! It is certain that she is dead
and that he lives. But I hear no wailing. Why?" I conquered the
terror that held me, and sprang to the door. I opened it and entered.
I immediately heard the doctor's voice shouting at me roughly:
"Do not come in! Do not disturb her! Do you want to kill her?"
Juliana looked like a dead woman. She was whiter than her
pillow and motionless. My mother bent over her to place a compress
in position. The doctor, calmly and methodically, was preparing an
internal lotion. His face looked anxious, but his hands did not
tremble. A basin of boiling water was steaming in a corner. Cristina
was pouring water from a pitcher into a second basin, in which she
held a thermometer. Another woman carried into an adjoining room
a package of cotton. In the air was an odor of ammonia and of
vinegar.
The slightest details of that scene, taken in at one glance, were
impressed on me indelibly.
 "Fifty degrees, mind," said the doctor, turning toward Cristina.
As I heard no wailing I looked about me. Some one was missing
in the room.
"Where's the baby?" I asked, trembling.
"He's there, in the other room," replied the doctor. "Go and see
him, and stay there."
I pointed to Juliana with a gesture of despair.
"Have no fear. Hand me the water, Cristina."
I entered the other room. My ears caught a feeble wail, scarcely
perceptible. I saw on a layer of cotton a reddish-looking little body,
violet-colored in spots, and whose back and the soles of the feet
were being rubbed by the midwife's dry hands.
"Come here, signor, come and see him," said the midwife,
continuing the friction. "Come and see what a fine boy he is. He did
not breathe at first, but now all danger is passed. Look at the fine
boy!"
She turned the baby round, putting him on his back.
"Look!"
She raised the baby and shook him up and down. The wailing
became a little stronger.
But in my eyes was a strange sparkle that prevented me from
seeing well. In all my being I felt some strange obtuse feeling, that
removed from me the exact perception of all these real and coarse
things.
"Look!" repeated the midwife again, replacing the wailing child
on the cotton.
He was crying vigorously now. He breathed, he lived! I bent
over that little palpitating body. I stooped to see him better, to
examine him, to recognize the odious resemblance. But the little
puffed-up face, still somewhat livid, with protruding eyeballs, swollen
mouth, wandering chin—that deformed visage had almost nothing
human about it, and inspired me with nothing but disgust.
"He wasn't breathing when he was born, did you say?"
I stammered.
"No, signor. A slight apoplexy."
She spoke without any intermission of the cares she was giving
the infant.
"Julia, give me the linen."
And, while swathing the infant, she added:
"There is nothing to fear on his account. God bless him!"
Her expert hands took hold of the little soft head as if to mould
it. The infant's wails increased in strength. He cried louder and
louder, as if to prove that he was really alive, as if to provoke me
and exasperate me.
"He is living, he is living. But the mother?"
Abruptly I re-entered the other room, beside myself.
"Tullio!"
It was Juliana's voice, as feeble as that of a dying woman.

XXXII.

The patient was now lying on her bed in the alcove. It was broad
daylight.
 I was seated at her bedside. I looked at her silently, sorrowfully.
She was not asleep, but extreme weakness prevented all movement,
removed all expression of life, made her seem inanimate. I made an
instinctive movement to touch her, because I thought she had
become cold as ice. But I was restrained by the fear of disturbing
her. More than once during my continuous contemplation, beneath
the shock of some sudden fear, I made a movement to rise and
fetch the doctor. As I meditated I rolled between my fingers a little
tuft of cotton which I carefully picked apart, and, from time to time,
impelled by an invincible restlessness, I placed it with infinite
precautions near Juliana's lips. The waving of the threads showed
me the strength of her respiration.
She was stretched on her back, and a low pillow supported her
head. In the frame formed by her chestnut hair, which was loosely
caught up, the lines of her face seemed more refined than usual;
showed more perfectly the waxy tones. Her night-dress was
fastened at the neck and tight at her wrists, and her hands lay flat
on the cover, so white that they were only distinguished from the
linen by the azure of their veins. A supernatural goodness emanated
from this poor creature, so pallid and motionless—a goodness that
penetrated all my being, that filled my heart. And one would have
thought that she was still repeating: "What have you done to me?"
Her colorless mouth, with its depressed angles, revealing a mortal
lassitude; that arid mouth, twisted by so many convulsions,
martyrized by so many cries, seemed constantly repeating: "What
have you done to me?"
I examined the emaciation of her body, that scarcely formed a
relief on the surface of the bed. Since the event had taken place,
since finally the other life had been separated from her life forever, I
no longer felt rise in me the least instinctive movement of repulsion,
not the least sudden shade of anger, nothing that could affect my
tenderness and pity. I no longer felt, on seeing her, anything but an
effusion of immense tenderness and pity for the best and most
unfortunate of human creatures. All my soul now hung on those
poor lips which, from one moment to another, might render up their
last sigh. As I looked at her pale face I thought with profound
sincerity: "How happy I should be could I transfuse half of my own
blood into her veins!"
I heard the light ticking of a clock placed on the night-table; I
felt that fugitive time was slipping by, and I thought: "He is alive!"
The flight of time caused me singular anxiety, very different from
that which I had felt on other occasions—indefinable.
I thought: "He lives, and has a tenacious hold on life. At the
time of his birth he was not breathing. When I saw him he still had
the signs of asphyxia all over his body. If the care of the midwife had
not saved him he would be now nothing but a little, livid cadaver, a
harmless, negligible, and perhaps forgettable thing. I should only
have Juliana's cure to think of, and I would not leave this room
again. I would be the most assiduous and most gentle of nurses. I
would succeed in realizing the transfusion of life, in accomplishing
the miracle by the power of love. It would be impossible for her not
to get well. She would resuscitate gradually, be regenerated with
new blood. She would appear a new creature, freed from all
impurity. We would both feel purified, worthy of each other, after so
long and so painful an expiation. The illness, the convalescence
would relegate the sad memories to an indefinite distance. And I
would try to efface from her soul even the shadow of remembrance;
I would try to procure for her perfect oblivion in love. After this great
trial, every other human love would seem frivolous by comparison
with ours." I exalted myself in the almost mystic splendor of this
dream of the future, whilst, beneath my fixed gaze, Juliana's visage
took on a sort of immateriality, an expression of supernatural
goodness; as if she were already removed from the world; as if the
presence of death had left behind in her being only a pure, spiritual
essence. The mute question no longer struck me like a wound, no
longer seemed terrifying to me: "What have you done to me?" I
replied: "Have you not become, through my instrumentality, the
sister of Pain? Has not suffering elevated your soul to a vertiginous
height, from which it has been given you to see the world in an
extraordinary light? Do you not owe to me the revelation of the
supreme truth? What matters our errors, our falls, our sins, if we
have succeeded in tearing the veil from our eyes, if we have
succeeded in setting at liberty what there is lowest in our miserable
substance? We will obtain the highest joy to which the elect of earth
can aspire—the consciousness of a re-birth."
I became exalted. The alcove was silent, the darkness full of
mystery. Juliana's face acquired for me a superhuman aspect, and
there was a solemnity in my contemplation, for I felt in the air the
presence of invisible death. All my soul was suspended on those
pallid lips, which, from one moment to another, might render their
last breath. And those lips were contracted, emitted a groan. The
painful contraction changed the lines of the face, persisted for
several moments. The wrinkles in the forehead deepened, the skin
of the eyelids trembled lightly, a white line appeared between the
lashes.
I bent over the invalid. She opened her eyes, and immediately
closed them. She did not appear to see me; her eyes showed no
sign of recognition. One would have thought she was blind. Had an
anemic amaurosis supervened? Had she been suddenly struck by
blindness?
I heard some one enter the room. God grant it is the doctor. I
left the alcove, and saw the doctor, my mother, and the midwife,
who had entered quietly. Cristina followed them.
"Is she quiet?" inquired the doctor in a low voice.
"She's moaning. Who knows what she is still suffering?"
"Has she spoken?"
"No."
"She must not be disturbed in the least; remember that."
"Just now she opened her eyes for a moment. She did not seem
to see anything."
The doctor entered the alcove, after having made a sign for us
to remain where we were. My mother said to me:
"Come. It is time to renew the compresses. Come quickly. Let us
go and see little Raymond. Federico is downstairs."
She took my hand. I let myself be led.
"He has fallen asleep," she continued. "He sleeps quietly. The
wet-nurse will arrive this evening."
However sad and anxious she was when speaking of Juliana,
she had a smile in her eyes when speaking of the infant. Her entire
face was lit up by tenderness.
 By the doctor's orders, a room distant from that occupied by the
invalid had been selected for Raymond—a large, airy room,
containing a thousand souvenirs of our childhood. Directly I entered
I saw Federico, Maria, and Natalia grouped around the cradle and
attentively contemplating the little sleeper. Federico turned and
asked:
"How is Juliana?"
"Bad."
"Isn't she resting?"
"She is suffering."
In spite of myself, I answered almost harshly. A sort of aridity
had suddenly invaded my soul. My only sensation was an
indomitable aversion against the intruder, an impatience of the
torture which people inflicted on me without knowing it. In spite of
my efforts, I could not feint. Thus, we were all around the cradle—I,
my mother, Federico, Maria, and Natalia—contemplating Raymond's
slumber.
He was bound in the swaddling-clothes, and his head was
covered with a cap trimmed with laces and ribbons. His face
appeared less swollen, but still red, and the cheeks shone like the
skin of a wound recently healed. A little saliva rolled from the
corners of the closed mouth; the eyelids, without lashes, puffed up
at the edges, covered the projecting eyeballs; the root of the nose,
yet formless, was marked by a bruise.
"Whom does he resemble?" said my mother. "I cannot find any
resemblance."
"He is too young," said Federico. "We must wait a few days."
 Two or three times my mother looked at me and then looked at
the infant, as if to compare the faces.
"No," she said. "I think he resembles Juliana most."
"At present," I interrupted, "he resembles no one. He is
horrible."
"Horrible? How can you say so? He is perfectly beautiful. Look
at that mass of hair."
With her fingers she gently raised the cap, disclosing the still
soft skull, on which were seen several brown hairs.
"Let me touch them, grandmamma," begged Maria, stretching
out her hand toward her brother's head.
"No, no. Do you wish to wake him?"
The skull had the appearance of wax somewhat softened by
heat, and it seemed as if the slightest touch would leave a mark on
it. My mother covered it again, and then bent over to kiss the
forehead with infinite gentleness.
"Me, too, grandmother!" begged Maria.
"Yes, but gently."
The cradle was too high.
"Lift me," said Maria to Federico.
Federico raised her up in his arms, and I saw the beautiful rosy
mouth of my daughter get ready to kiss before she succeeded in
touching the forehead. I saw her long locks play on the whiteness of
the clothes.
Federico looked at me. But I did not smile.
"Me, too! Me, too!"
Natalia now clung to the edge of the cradle.
"Gently!"
 Federico raised her too. And again I saw the long locks play on
the whiteness of the bed linen, in the movement she made in
bending over. This spectacle had petrified me, and my look certainly
expressed my emotion. These kisses from lips so dear to me had not
removed from the intruder his repugnant aspect; they had, on the
contrary, rendered him more odious to me. I felt it would be
impossible for me to touch that strange flesh, to make any gesture
resembling paternal love. My mother observed me with uneasiness.
"You do not kiss him?" she asked.
"No, mother, no. He has done too much harm to Juliana. I
cannot forgive him...."
I recoiled with an instinctive movement, a movement of
manifest disgust. My mother remained for a moment stupefied,
speechless.
"What are you saying, Tullio? Is it this poor baby's fault? Be
just!"
Assuredly my mother had remarked the sincerity of my
aversion. I could not succeed in restraining myself. All my nerves
rebelled.
"Impossible now! Impossible! Let me be, mother. It will pass."
My tone was resolute. I trembled all over. There was a lump in
my throat; the muscles of my face contracted. After so many hours
of violent tension my entire being required relaxation. I believe that
a great burst of sobs would have done me good, but the lump in my
throat was too firm.
"You grieve me greatly, Tullio," said my mother.
"So you exact that I kiss him?" I burst out, beside myself.
 And I approached the cradle, bent over the infant and kissed
him.
The child awoke. He began to wail, feebly at first, then with
increasing fury. I observed that the skin of his face took on a more
reddish tint and wrinkled beneath the effort, while his whitish tongue
trembled in his wide-open mouth. Although I was at the height of
exasperation, I recognized the error committed. I felt the gaze of
Federico, Maria, and Natalia fixed upon me.
"Forgive me, mother," I stammered. "I no longer know what I
am doing; I am not in my right senses. Forgive me."
She had taken the infant from the cradle, and held it in her
arms, without succeeding in quieting it. The wails went through me,
overwhelmed me.
"Let us go out, Federico."
I left hastily. Federico followed me.
"Juliana is very ill. I cannot understand how any one can think
of anything else but her now," I said, as if to justify myself. "You
have not seen her. She looks as if she were dying."

XXXIII.

For several days Juliana hovered between life and death. Her
weakness was so great that the slightest effort was followed by
exhaustion. She was compelled to remain constantly on her back,
without the slightest movement. The least attempt to raise herself
provoked symptoms of cerebral anemia. Nothing could be found to
overcome the nauseas that seized her, to lift the weight that crushed
down on her chest, to remove the buzzing that she heard without
cease.
I remained day and night at her bedside, always on the watch,
sustained by an indefatigable energy that surprised even myself. I
employed all the strength of my own life in sustaining that life which
was threatened with extinction. It seemed to me that, from the
other side of the bed, death was watching, ready to profit by an
opportune moment to ravish his prey. At times I had the real
sensation that I was becoming transfused in the debilitated body of
the invalid, that I communicated to her a little of my strength, that I
imparted an impulse to her exhausted heart. Never did the miseries
of illness inspire in me the least repugnance, the slightest disgust;
never did any material object offend the delicacy of my senses. My
senses, overexcited, were attentive only in perceiving the least
changes in the condition of the invalid. Before she spoke a word,
before she made a sign, I divined her desires, her wants, the degree
of her suffering. By divination, without the physician having to make
any suggestion, I had succeeded in being able to discover new and
ingenious means of relieving one of her pains, of calming one of her
attacks. I alone could persuade her to eat and to sleep. I resorted to
every stratagem, to prayers and caresses to make her swallow her
medicine. I pressed her so much that finally, incapable of further
resistance, she had to submit to a salutary effort to triumph over the
nausea. And there was nothing sweeter to me than the
imperceptible smile with which she submitted to my will. Her
slightest acts of obedience put my heart into a profound commotion.
When she said, in her feeble voice: "Is this right? Am I good?" I felt
my throat choke, my eyes become veiled.
She often complained of a painful and incessant throbbing at
the temples. Then I would pass my finger-tips over her brow to
appease the pain. I caressed her hair very softly to lull her to sleep.
When I perceived that she was asleep her respiration gave me the
illusory sensation that I was solaced, as if the benefit of the slumber
were extended even to me. In presence of this slumber I felt a sort
of religious emotion. I was invaded by a vague fervor. I felt a desire
to believe in the existence of some superior being, omnispective,
omnipotent, in order to address my Prayers to him. There arose
spontaneously from the depths of my soul the preludes of prayer
according to the Christian formula. Sometimes the inner eloquence
exalted me even to the summit of the true faith. Within me there
awoke all the mystic tendencies transmitted to me by a long line of
Catholic ancestors.
While my inner orisons were unfolding I contemplated the
sleeper. She was still as pale as her night-dress. The transparency of
her skin would have enabled me to count the veins on her cheeks,
on her chin, on her neck. I watched her as if I had had the hope of
seeing the beneficial effects of that repose, the slow diffusion of new
blood engendered by the nourishment, the first premonitory signs of
cure. I would have liked, by some supernatural faculty, to be present
at the mysterious restorative elaboration which was taking place in
that enfeebled body. And I persisted in hoping: "When she awakes
she will feel stronger."
She seemed to feel a great relief when she held my hand in her
own icy hands. Sometimes she took my hand and put it on the
pillow, pressed her cheek against it with a childlike gesture, and
gradually dozed off in that position. So as not to awaken her, I
exerted all my strength to keep for a long, long time my arm in this
one position, which was torture.
Once she said:
"Why don't you sleep here with me? You never sleep."
And she forced me to lay my head on her pillow.
"Let us go to sleep!"
I pretended I was going to sleep, to set her a good example.
But when I opened my eyes I encountered hers wide open and fixed
on me.
"Well!" I cried. "What are you doing?"
"And you?" she replied.
In her eyes there was an expression of such tender goodness
that I felt my heart melt. I extended my mouth and kissed her
eyelids.
She wished to kiss me the same way. Then she repeated:
"Let us go to sleep now!"
Thus, a veil of oblivion sometimes descended over our
misfortune.
Often her poor feet were frozen. I felt them beneath the covers,
and they seemed to me like marble. She herself said:
"They are dead."
They were so emaciated and so small that I could almost hold
them in my hand. They inspired me with a great pity. I warmed
some linen at the fire to put on them, and did not tire of giving them
attention. I would have liked to warm them with my breath, to cover
them with kisses. With this new pity there mingled the distant
recollections of love—recollections of the happy time when, by a
habit that almost resembled a vow, I reserved for myself exclusively
the privilege of putting on her shoes in the morning and taking them
off at night with my own hands, while on my knees before her.
One day, after long vigils, I was so fatigued that an irresistible
slumber seized me just at the moment when I had my hands
beneath the cover holding the little dead feet in the warm cloth. My
head sank forward, and I went to sleep in that attitude.
When I awoke I saw my mother, my brother, and the doctor,
who were smiling. I was embarrassed.
"Poor boy! He is tired out," said my mother, stroking my hair
with one of her most tender gestures.
Juliana said:
"Take him away, mother! Take him away, Federico!"
"No, no, I am not tired," I repeated; "I am not tired."
The doctor announced his departure. He declared that the
invalid was out of danger and on the road to recovery. But it was
necessary, by all means possible, to continue to excite the
regeneration of blood. His colleague, Jemma de Tussi, with whom he
had consulted and found of the same opinion, would continue the
same treatment. He had less confidence in remedies than in the
rigorous observation of the various hygienic rules and of diet that he
had prescribed.
"In truth," he added, pointing to me, "I could not wish for a
more intelligent, more vigilant, or more devoted nurse. He has done
miracles, and he will do more. I shall go away perfectly easy."
It seemed to me that my heart leaped into my throat and was
suffocating me. The unexpected praise of that serious man, in my
mother's and brother's presence, caused me profound emotion. It
was an extraordinary reward for me.
I looked at Juliana, and I saw that her eyes were full of tears.
And beneath my look she burst out all at once into sobs. I made a
superhuman effort to contain myself, but could not succeed. It
seemed to me that my soul was melted. In my bosom I felt all the
virtues in the world collected together in that unforgettable hour.

XXXIV.

Juliana regained strength day by day, but slowly. My assiduity did

not wane. I even took advantage of the remarks made by Dr. Vebesti
to redouble my vigilance, to permit no one to replace me, to oppose
my mother and brother, who advised me to rest. My body from now
on became accustomed to the severe discipline, and scarcely ever
felt fatigue. My entire life was enclosed between the walls of that
room, in the intimacy of that alcove, in the circle where the invalid
breathed.
As she required absolute quiet, as she was ordered to speak
little so as to avoid fatigue, I exercised my ingenuity in keeping from
her bedside even the members of her family. The alcove remained
therefore isolated from the rest of the house. For hours and hours
we—Juliana and I—were alone. And, crushed as she was by her
illness, attentive as I was in my pious duty, we were at times able to
forget our misfortune, to lose the sense of reality, to retain no other
consciousness but that of our immense love. At times it seemed to
me that beyond the curtains nothing existed any longer, so great
was the concentration of my entire being on the invalid. Nothing
occurred to recall the frightful thing to me. I saw before me a
suffering sister, and my sole care was to relieve her pain.
Too often these veils of forgetfulness were brutally rent asunder.
My mother spoke of Raymond. The curtains opened to give passage
to the intruder.
My mother carried him in her arms. I was present, and I felt
that I must have become pale, as all my blood flowed back to my
heart. And Juliana, what sensation did she feel?
I looked at that reddish face, the size of a man's fist, half hidden
by the bonnet trimmings, and with a fierce aversion that annihilated
every other emotion in my soul, I thought: "What shall I do to
deliver myself of you? Why were you not born dead?" My hate was
boundless. It was instinctive, blind, invincible—I might say, carnal;
for it seemed to me that it had its seat in my flesh, that it surged
through all my fibres, through all my nerves, through all my veins.
Nothing could conquer it, nothing could destroy it. It sufficed that
the intruder were present, at no matter what hour, no matter under
what circumstances, for there to be immediately induced in me a
sort of annihilating rage, for me to fall beneath the empire of a
single and unique passion: my hate against him.
My mother said to Juliana:
"Look! How he has already changed in a few days! He
resembles you more than Tullio, but he bears very little resemblance
to either of you. He is still too little. We shall see later. Do you want
to kiss him?"
 She put the child's forehead to the invalid's lips. What sensation
did Juliana feel?
The infant began to cry. I had the courage to say to my mother
without bitterness:
"Take him away, please. Juliana needs quiet, and these shocks
do her great harm."
My mother left the alcove. The wails died away, but continued
to cause me the same sensation of painful laceration, the same
desire to run and strangle him so as not to hear them. We heard
them for some time while he was being carried away. When they
finally ceased, the silence seemed horrible to me; it fell on me like
an avalanche, it crushed me. But, instead of dwelling on my pain, I
thought immediately that Juliana required assistance.
"Ah! Tullio, Tullio, it is not possible..."
"Be silent, Juliana! Be silent, if you love me! I beseech you, be
silent!"
My voice, my gesture, was supplicating. All the irritation of my
hate had fallen. I suffered only on account of her suffering; I feared
only the distress caused the invalid, the shock she had received from
that fragile life.
"If you love me you must think of nothing but your cure. Look
at me! I think only of you; I suffer only for you. You must not
torment yourself. You must abandon yourself entirely to my
tenderness, in order to get well..."
In her feeble and trembling voice she answered:
"But who knows what you secretly feel in your heart? Poor
soul!"
 "No, no, Juliana, do not torment yourself! I suffer only for you
and because I see you suffer. I forget all when I see you smile.
When you feel well, I am happy. You must get well therefore if you
love me; you must be quiet, obedient, patient. When you are well,
when you are stronger, then ... who knows? God is good."
She murmured:
"My God! have pity on us!"
"In what manner?" I thought. "In causing the Intruder to die?"
So, then, we both wished his death. The mother herself saw no
other alternative than the destruction of her child. Yes, that was the
only alternative. And my memory recalled the brief dialogue that, on
one now distant evening, we had had beneath the elms; it recalled
the painful confession. "But does she still hate him, now he is born?
Can she feel a sincere aversion against the flesh of her flesh? Does
she pray God sincerely to take from her the fruit of her own
entrails?" I again recalled the wild hope that I had conceived, as if in
a flash, on the tragic night. "Suppose the idea of crime should occur
to her and gradually become strong enough to influence her."
And I looked at her hands stretched out on the cloth, so pale
that they were distinguishable from the sheets only by the azure of
their veins.

XXXV.

Now that the invalid's condition was improving daily, a strange

sorrow oppressed me. At the bottom of my heart, I did not see the
sad days of the alcove pass by without a vague regret. Those
mornings, those evenings, those nights, however desolate they
were, had their grave sweetness. Every day my labor of charity
seemed more beautiful. An abundance of love inundated my soul
and submerged at times my sombre thoughts, procured for me at
times forgetfulness of the frightful thing, awoke in me some
consolatory illusion, some indefinite dream. Shut up in that alcove, I
felt at times a sensation similar to that felt in the shadows of lonely
chapels: I felt as if in a refuge from the violences of life, from
opportunities for sinning. At times it seemed to me that the light
curtains separated me from an abyss. I was assailed by sudden and
unknown fears. Around me, in the night, I heard the silence of the
entire house, and with the eyes of my soul I saw, in the corner of a
distant room, by the side of a lighted lamp, the cradle in which slept
the intruder, my mother's joy—my heir. A great shudder of horror ran
through me, and I remained for a long time influenced by fright,
under the sinister light of this single thought. The curtains separated
me from an abyss.
But, now that Juliana's condition improved daily, excuses failed
me for prolonging her isolation, and by degrees the routine of
domestic life invaded the peaceful room. My mother, my brother,
Maria, Natalia, Miss Edith, entered more frequently, remained longer.
Raymond imposed himself upon the maternal tenderness. It was no
longer possible to avoid it, either for Juliana or for me. We had to be
lavish with kisses and smiles. We had to feint and artfully
dissimulate, to endure the refined cruelties that chance brought to
us, to be tortured by slow fire.
 Nourished with healthy and substantial milk, surrounded by
infinite care, Raymond gradually lost his first repulsive appearance
and commenced to grow. He grew whiter, acquired a more clearly
defined form, and now kept his gray eyes wide open. But all his
movements were odious to me, from the sucking of his lips when
applied to the breast to the uncertain movements of his little hands.
I could never discover anything attractive in him. I never had a
thought of him that was not hateful. When I was obliged to touch
him, when my mother brought him to me for a kiss, there ran over
my entire skin the same thrill of horror which contact with an
unclean animal would have caused me. Every fibre in me revolted,
and the violence that I did myself threw me into despair.
Every day brought its new torture, and my mother was my
grand inquisitor. Once, on unexpectedly entering the room, and
parting the curtains of the alcove, I perceived the infant lying on the
bed by Juliana's side. Nobody was present. We three were there
together without witnesses. The infant slept peacefully, bound up in
its swaddling-clothes.
"It was mother who left him here," stammered Juliana.
I fled like a madman.
Another time Cristina called me. I followed her into the room
containing the cradle. My mother was there, with the baby on her
knees.
The child was moving its limbs and arms, turning its eyes from
one side to the other, burying its fingers in its gaping mouth. At the
wrists, at the ankles, behind the knees on the lower abdomen, the
flesh swelled out in little cushions and was covered with rice powder.
My mother's hands caressed the little members with delight, pointing
out to me every detail, expatiating on the skin which a recent bath
had polished and made lustrous. The infant seemed to be enjoying
it.
"Feel here, feel how solid he is already!" she said, inviting me to
touch him.
I was obliged to touch him.
"See how heavy he is!"
I was obliged to lift him, to feel that warm and flaccid little body
palpitate between my hands, which were seized by a trembling that
was not due to tenderness.
"The love, the love, the love of his grandmother!" repeated my
mother, tickling the chin of the infant, who did not yet know how to
laugh.
The dear gray head, that had already bent over two blessed
cradles before for the same caresses, and much whiter now, bent
unconsciously over another's child, over the intruder. I imagined that
she had not shown herself as tender toward Maria, toward Natalia,
toward the true creatures of my blood.
She wished to swathe him herself. She made the sign of the
cross on the abdomen.
"But you are not yet a Christian!"
And turning toward me, she said:
"The time has come to fix the baptismal day."

XXXVI.
Dr. Jemma, chevalier of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a
handsome, cheerful old man, brought a bouquet of white
chrysanthemums as an offering to Juliana.
"Oh! my favorite flowers!" said Juliana. "Thank you."
She took the bouquet, gazed on it for a long time, buried her
tapering fingers in it; and there was a sad analogy between her
pallor and that of the autumn flowers. They were chrysanthemums
as large as full-blown roses, tufted, heavy; they had the color of a
sickly, bloodless, almost lifeless skin, the livid whiteness noticeable
on the cheeks of beggars benumbed by cold. A few were
imperceptibly veined with violet, others were slightly tinged with
yellow, with exquisite tones.
"Take them," she said to me. "Put them in water."
It was in the morning; it was in November. We had just passed
the anniversary of the fatal day which these flowers recalled.
"Que ferai-je sans Eurydice?"
While I was putting the white chrysanthemums into a vase the
air from "Orpheus" sang in my memory. There reappeared in my
mind certain fragments of the singular scene that had taken place
the year previous, and I saw Juliana again in that warm and golden
light, in that suave perfume, in the midst of all those objects bearing
the imprint of feminine grace, to which the phantom of the ancient
melody seemed to impart the palpitation of a secret life, to spread
the shadow of I know not what mystery. Had not these flowers
awakened in her also some remembrance?
A mortal sorrow weighed on my soul—the sorrow of an
inconsolable lover. The Other presented himself before me, and his
eyes were as gray as those of the intruder.
 The doctor said to me from the alcove:
"You may open the window. It is well to have the room well
aired, to have plenty of sunlight enter."
"Oh, yes, yes, open it!" cried the invalid.
I opened it. At this moment my mother entered, together with
the wet-nurse, who had Raymond in her arms. I remained between
the curtains, and leaned against the balustrade and looked out on
the landscape. Behind me I heard the familiar voices.
We had arrived at the end of November. Already the summer of
the Dead had passed. A great vacuous light extended over the
humid country, over the noble and peaceful profile of the hillsides. It
seemed that through the confused tops of the olive plants a silvery
vapor was circulating. Here and there several threads of smoke
whitened in the sun. The breeze bore, at intervals, the light rustling
of falling leaves. The rest was only peace and silence.
"Why," I thought, "did she sing that morning? Why, on hearing
her, did I feel so agitated?" She seemed to me another woman. Was
she then in love with him? To what condition of her soul did that
unusual effusion correspond? She sang because she loved. Perhaps I
am mistaken. But I shall never know the truth.
It was no longer the jealous agitation of the senses, but a more
noble affliction that arose from the depths of my soul. I thought:
"What remembrance has she retained of him? Has that
remembrance often tormented her? The son is a living bond. She
finds in Raymond something of the man to whom she has belonged;
she will find more precise resemblances. It is impossible that she
should forget Raymond's father, and perhaps she has him constantly
before her eyes. What would she feel if she knew he were doomed?"
 And I stopped to imagine the progress of the paralysis, and to
form an inner picture of that man's condition based on that
furnished me by the recollection of poor Spinelli. I saw him once
more seated in his large red leather armchair, of a clayey pallor, with
every line of his visage drawn, his mouth distorted and gaping, full
of saliva and stammering incomprehensibly. I once more saw the
gesture he made every moment to gather in his handkerchief that
ever-flowing saliva which rolled down the corners of his mouth.
"Tullio!"
It was my mother's voice. I turned and walked toward the
alcove.
Juliana lay on her back, dejected and silent.
"It's all arranged. The baptism takes place the day after to-
morrow," said my mother. "The doctor believes that Juliana must
remain in bed for some time yet."
"How do you think she is, doctor?" I asked.
"It seems to me that there is a slight pause in her progress,"
replied he, shaking his fine white head. "I find her very feeble. We
must increase the alimentation, force it a little."
Juliana interrupted him, looking at me the while with a very wan
smile:
"He examined my heart."
"Well?" I asked, turning abruptly toward the old man.
I thought I saw a shadow pass over his forehead.
"It is a perfectly healthy heart," he hastened to answer. "It only
needs blood ... and quiet. Come! Come! Be brave! How is your
appetite to-day?"
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