mechanism still moving while her mother lay dead,
sent a fresh pang of anguish through her heart. She looked at the time.
It was hardly half-past ten, and as she thought of the long night to
come, she was seized with a horrible dread.

She began to think of her own life--of Rosalie, of Gilberte--of all her
illusions which had been, one by one, so cruelly destroyed. Life
contained nothing but misery and pain, misfortune and death; there was
nothing true, nothing honest, nothing but what gave rise to suffering
and tears. Repose and happiness could only be expected in another
existence, when the soul had been delivered from its early trials. Her
thoughts turned to the unfathomable mystery of the soul, but, as she
reasoned about it, her poetic theories were invariably upset by others,
just as poetic and just as unreal. Where was now her mother's soul, the
soul which had forsaken this still, cold body? Perhaps it was far away,
floating in space. But had it entirely vanished like the perfume from a
withered flower, or was it wandering like some invisible bird freed from
its cage? Had it returned to God, or was it scattered among the new
germs of creation? It might be very near; perhaps in this very room,
hovering around the inanimate body it had left, and at this thought
Jeanne fancied she felt a breath, as if a spirit had passed by her. Her
blood ran cold with terror; she did not dare turn round to look behind
her, and she sat motionless, her heart beating wildly.

At that moment the invisible insect again commenced its buzzing, noisy
flight, and Jeanne trembled from head to foot at the sound. Then, as she
recognized the noise, she felt a little reassured, and rose and looked
around. Her eyes fell on the escritoire with the sphinxes' heads, the
guardian of the "souvenirs." As she looked at it she thought it would be
fulfilling a sacred, filial duty, which would please her mother as she
looked down on her from another world, to read these letters, as she
might have done a holy book during this last watch.

She knew it was the correspondence of her grandfather and grandmother,
whom she had never known; and it seemed as if her hands would join
theirs across her mother's corpse, and so a sacred chain of affection
would be formed between those who had died so long ago, their daughter
who had but just joined them, and her child who was still on earth.

She opened the escritoire and took out the letters; they had been
carefully