ried to hold up its
folds on her breast as if shame-stricken at her scanty
clothing. But her little hand was not equal to the task; and
so white was she that the lamplight failed to make
distinction between the colour of the drapery and the hue of
the flesh. Wrapped in this fine tissue, she was more like an
antique marble statue of a bather than a live woman. Dead or
alive, woman or statue, shadow or body, her beauty was
unchangeable, but the green flash of her eyes was somewhat
dulled, and her mouth, so red of old, was now tinted only
with a faint rose-tint like that of her cheeks. The blue
flowerets in her hair were withered and had lost almost all
their petals; yet she was still all charming--so charming
that, despite the strangeness of the adventure and the
unexplained fashion of her entrance, no thought of fear
occurred to me. She placed the lamp on the table and seated
herself on the foot of my bed; then, bending towards me, she
spoke in the soft and silvery voice that I have heard from
none but her. "I have kept you waiting long, dear Romuald,
and you must have thought that I had forgotten you. But I
come from very far--from a place whence no traveller has yet
returned. There is neither sun nor moon, nor aught but space
and shadow; no road is there, nor pathway to guide the foot,
nor air to uphold the wing; and yet here am I, for love is
stronger than death, and is his master at the last. Ah! what
sad faces, what sights of terror, I have met! With what
pains has my soul, regaining this world by force of will,
found again my body and reinstalled itself! With what effort
have I lifted the heavy slab they laid upon me, even to the
bruising of my poor feeble hands! Kiss them, dear love, and
they will be cured." She placed one by one the cold palms of
her little hands against my mouth, and I kissed them again
and again, while she watched me with her smile of ineffable
content. I at once forgot Serapion's advice, I forgot my
sacred office; I succumbed without resistance at the first
summons, I did not even attempt to repulse the tempter.

She tells him how she had dreamed of him long before she saw him; how
she had striven to prevent his sacrifice; how she was jealous of God,
whom he preferred to her; and how, though she had forced the gates of