ina's
confessor after Abbe Pisoni, and who undid what the other had done. Yes,
a handsome man he is, but a fine bungler all the same, a perfect killjoy
with all the crafty hindrances which he brought into that divorce affair.
I wish you had been here to see what a big sign of the cross he made
after he had knelt down. He didn't cry, he didn't: he seemed to be saying
that as things had ended so badly it was evident that God had withdrawn
from all share in the business. So much the worse for the dead!"

Victorine spoke gently and without a pause, as it relieved her, to empty
her heart after the terrible hours of bustle and suffocation which she
had spent since the previous day. "And that one yonder," she resumed in a
lower voice, "don't you recognise her?"

She glanced towards the poorly clad girl whom Pierre had taken for a
servant, and whom intensity of grief had prostrated beside the bed. With
a gesture of awful suffering this girl had just thrown back her head, a
head of extraordinary beauty, enveloped by superb black hair.

"La Pierina!" said Pierre. "Ah! poor girl."

Victorine made a gesture of compassion and tolerance.

"What would you have?" said she, "I let her come up. I don't know how she
heard of the trouble, but it's true that she is always prowling round the
house. She sent and asked me to come down to her, and you should have
heard her sob and entreat me to let her see her Prince once more! Well,
she does no harm to anybody there on the floor, looking at them both with
her beautiful loving eyes full of tears. She's been there for half an
hour already, and I had made up my mind to turn her out if she didn't
behave properly. But since she's so quiet and doesn't even move, she may
well stop and fill her heart with the sight of them for her whole life
long."

It was really sublime to see that ignorant, passionate, beautiful Pierina
thus overwhelmed below the nuptial couch on which the lovers slept for
all eternity. She had sunk down on her heels, her arms hanging heavily
beside her, and her hands open. And with raised face, motionless as in an
ecstasy of suffering, she did not take her eyes from that adorable and
tragic pair. Never had human face displayed such beauty, such a dazzling
splendour of suffering and love; never had there been such a portrayal of
ancient Grief, not however cold like marble but quivering with life. What
was she thinking of, what were her sufferings, as she thus fixedly gazed
at