furniture, with its white lacquer and silver incrustations,
loomed vague and wan through the gloom. A curtain had been drawn to, so
that the bed lay flooded with shadow. A sigh became audible; then a kiss
broke the silence, and Nana, slipping off the coverlet, sat for a moment
or two, barelegged, on the edge of the bed. The count let his head fall
back on the pillow and remained in darkness.

"Dearest, you believe in the good God, don't you?" she queried after
some moments' reflection. Her face was serious; she had been overcome by
pious terrors on quitting her lover's arms.

Since morning, indeed, she had been complaining of feeling
uncomfortable, and all her stupid notions, as she phrased it, notions
about death and hell, were secretly torturing her. From time to time
she had nights such as these, during which childish fears and atrocious
fancies would thrill her with waking nightmares. She continued:

"I say, d'you think I shall go to heaven?"

And with that she shivered, while the count, in his surprise at her
putting such singular questions at such a moment, felt his old religious
remorse returning upon him. Then with her chemise slipping from her
shoulders and her hair unpinned, she again threw herself upon his
breast, sobbing and clinging to him as she did so.

"I'm afraid of dying! I'm afraid of dying!" He had all the trouble in
the world to disengage himself. Indeed, he was himself afraid of giving
in to the sudden madness of this woman clinging to his body in her dread
of the Invisible. Such dread is contagious, and he reasoned with her.
Her conduct was perfect--she had only to conduct herself well in order
one day to merit pardon. But she shook her head. Doubtless she was doing
no one any harm; nay, she was even in the constant habit of wearing a
medal of the Virgin, which she showed to him as it hung by a red thread
between her breasts. Only it had been foreordained that all unmarried
women who held conversation with men would go to hell. Scraps of her
catechism recurred to her remembrance. Ah, if one only knew for certain,
but, alas, one was sure of nothing; nobody ever brought back any
information, and then, truly, it would be stupid to bother oneself
about things if the priests were talking foolishness all the time.
Nevertheless, she religiously kissed her medal, which was still warm
from contact with her skin, as though by way of charm against death,
the idea of which filled her with icy horror. Muf