t, against the wall at the head of the bed, Pierre
perceived the escutcheon of the Boccaneras, embroidered in gold and
coloured silks on a groundwork of violet velvet. There was the winged
dragon belching flames, there was the fierce and glowing motto "_Bocca
nera, Alma rossa_" (black mouth, red soul), the mouth darkened by a roar,
the soul flaming like a brazier of faith and love. And behold! all that
old race of passion and violence with its tragic legends had reappeared,
its blood bubbling up afresh to urge that last and adorable daughter of
the line to those terrifying and prodigious nuptials in death. And to
Pierre that escutcheon recalled another memory, that of the portrait of
Cassia Boccanera the _amorosa_ and avengeress who had flung herself into
the Tiber with her brother Ercole and the corpse of her lover Flavio. Was
there not here even with Benedetta the same despairing clasp seeking to
vanquish death, the same savagery in hurling oneself into the abyss with
the corpse of the one's only love? Benedetta and Cassia were as sisters,
Cassia, who lived anew in the old painting in the _salon_ overhead,
Benedetta who was here dying of her lover's death, as though she were but
the other's spirit. Both had the same delicate childish features, the
same mouth of passion, the same large dreamy eyes set in the same round,
practical, and stubborn head.

"My Dario, here I am!"

For a second, which seemed an eternity, they clasped one another, she
neither repelled nor terrified by the disorder which made him so
unrecognisable, but displaying a delirious passion, a holy frenzy as if
to pass beyond life, to penetrate with him into the black Unknown. And
beneath the shock of the felicity at last offered to him he expired, with
his arms yet convulsively wound around her as though indeed to carry her
off. Then, whether from grief or from bliss amidst that embrace of death,
there came such a rush of blood to her heart that the organ burst: she
died on her lover's neck, both tightly and for ever clasped in one
another's arms.

There was a faint sigh. Victorine understood and drew near, while Pierre,
also erect, remained quivering with the tearful admiration of one who has
beheld the sublime.

"Look, look!" whispered the servant, "she no longer moves, she no longer
breathes. Ah! my poor child, my poor child, she is dead!"

Then the priest murmured: "Oh! God, how beautiful they are."

It was true, never had loftier and more re