tensity 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 her Prince now and for ever locked in her rival's arms? Was it some
jealousy which could have no end that chilled the blood of her veins? Or
was it mere suffering at having lost him, at realising that she was
looking at him for the last time, without thought of hatred for that
other woman who vainly sought to warm him with her arms as icy cold as
his own? There was still a soft gleam in the poor girl's blurred eyes,
and her lips were still lips of love though curved in bitterness by
grief. She found the lovers so pure and beautiful as they lay there
amidst that profusion of flowers! And beautiful herself, beautiful like a
queen, ignorant of her own charms, she remained there breathless, a
humble servant, a loving slave as it were, whose heart had been wrenched
away and carried off by her dying master.

People were now constantly entering the roo