t
state shall I find her? Why do they use these precautions?" gave rise to
apprehensions which were the more cruel because so indefinite; all forms
of suffering crowded my mind.

We reached the door of the chamber and the abbe opened it. I then saw
Henriette, dressed in white, sitting on her little sofa which was placed
before the fireplace, on which were two vases filled with flowers;
flowers were also on a table near the window. The expression of the
abbe's face, which was that of amazement at the change in the room, now
restored to its former state, showing me that the dying woman had sent
away the repulsive preparations which surround a sick-bed. She had spent
the last waning strength of fever in decorating her room to receive him
whom in that final hour she loved above all things else. Surrounded by
clouds of lace, her shrunken face, which had the greenish pallor of a
magnolia flower as it opens, resembled the first outline of a cherished
head drawn in chalks upon the yellow canvas of a portrait. To feel how
deeply the vulture's talons now buried themselves in my heart, imagine
the eyes of that outlined face finished and full of life,--hollow
eyes which shone with a brilliancy unusual in a dying person. The calm
majesty given to her in the past by her constant victory over sorrow
was there no longer. Her forehead, the only part of her face which still
kept its beautiful proportions, wore an expression of aggressive will
and covert threats. In spite of the waxy texture of her elongated face,
inward fires were issuing from it like the fluid mist which seems to
flame above the fields of a hot day. Her hollow temples, her sunken
cheeks showed the interior formation of the face, and the smile upon her
whitened lips vaguely resembled the grin of death. Her robe, which was
folded across her breast, showed the emaciation of her beautiful figure.
The expression of her head said plainly that she knew she was changed,
and that the thought filled her with bitterness. She was no longer the
arch Henriette, nor the sublime and saintly Madame de Mortsauf, but the
nameless something of Bossuet struggling against annihilation, driven to
the selfish battle of life against death by hunger and balked desire. I
took her hand, which was dry and burning, to kiss it, as I seated myself
beside her. She guessed my sorrowful surprise from the very effort that
I made to hide it. Her discolored lips drew up from her famished teeth
trying to for