egan to sob yet more loudly so as to create quite a stir in the room,
Celia raised her and held her up with both arms, for fear lest she should
fall again. And she led her away in a sisterly clasp, like a sister of
affection and despair, lavishing the most gentle, consoling words upon
her as they went.

"Follow them, go and see what becomes of them," Victorine said to Pierre.
"I do not want to stir from here, it quiets me to watch over my two poor
children."

A Capuchin was just beginning a fresh mass at the improvised altar, and
the low Latin psalmody went on again, while in the adjoining
ante-chamber, where another mass was being celebrated, a bell was heard
tinkling for the elevation of the host. The perfume of the flowers was
becoming more violent and oppressive amidst the motionless and mournful
atmosphere of the spacious throne-room. The four servants standing at the
head of the bed, as for a _gala_ reception, did not stir, and the
procession of visitors ever continued, men and women entering in silence,
suffocating there for a moment, and then withdrawing, carrying away with
them the never-to-be-forgotten vision of the two tragic lovers sleeping
their eternal sleep.

Pierre joined Celia and La Pierina in the _anticamera nobile_, where
stood Don Vigilio. The few seats belonging to the throne-room had there
been placed in a corner, and the little Princess had just compelled the
work-girl to sit down in an arm-chair, in order that she might recover
self-possession. Celia was in ecstasy before her, enraptured at finding
her so beautiful, more beautiful than any other, as she said. Then she
spoke of the two dead ones, who also had seemed to her very beautiful,
endowed with an extraordinary beauty, at once superb and sweet; and
despite all her tears, she still remained in a transport of admiration.
On speaking with La Pierina, Pierre learnt that her brother Tito was at
the hospital in great danger from the effects of a terrible knife thrust
dealt him in the side; and since the beginning of the winter, said the
girl, the misery in the district of the castle fields had become
frightful. It was a source of great suffering to every one, and those
whom death carried off had reason to rejoice.

Celia, however, with a gesture of invincible hopefulness, brushed all
idea of suffering, even of death, aside. "No, no, we must live," she
said. "And beauty is sufficient for life. Come, my dear, do not remain
here, do not weep an