On the wall-paper were bouquets of corn, cornflowers, and poppies, and
the ceiling was painted with clouds, fresh-looking and vapoury. Between
the door and window a carved wood praying-chair with a tapestry cushion
looked quite at home in its corner; above it, against the light, was a
holy-water vessel of brass-work, representing St. John baptizing Christ.
In the opposite corner, hanging on the wall with silk cords, was a small
bracket with some French books leaning against each other, and a few
English works in cloth bindings. In front of the window, which was
framed with creeping plants joining each other over the top and with the
leaves that hung over bathed in light, was a dressing-table, covered
with silk and guipure lace, with a blue velvet mirror and silver-mounted
toilet bottles. The shaped mantel-shelf surmounted with a carved panel,
had its glass framed with the same light shade of velvet as that on the
dressing-table. On each side of the glass were miniatures of Renée's
mother, one when quite young and wearing a string of pearls round her
neck, and a daguerrotype representing her much older. Above this was a
portrait of her father in his uniform, painted by herself, the frame of
which, leaning forward, caused the picture to dominate the whole room.
On a rosewood dinner-wagon, in front of the chimney-piece, were one or
two knick-knacks, the sick girl's latest fancies--the little jug and the
Saxony bowl that she had wanted. A little farther away, by the second
window, all the souvenirs that Renée had collected in her riding
days--her hunting and shooting relics, riding-canes, a Pyrenees whip,
and some stags' feet with a card tied with blue ribbon, telling the day
and place where the animal had been run to cover. Beyond the window was
a little writing-desk which had been her father's at the military
school, and on its shelf stood the boxes, baskets, and presents she had
received as New Year's gifts. The bed was entirely draped with muslin.
At the back of it, and as though under the shelter of its curtains, all
the prayer-books Renée had had since her childhood were arranged on an
Algerian bracket, from which some chaplets were hanging. Then came a
chest of drawers covered with a hundred little nothings: doll's-house
furniture, some glass ornaments, halfpenny jewellery, trifles won in
lotteries, even little animals made of bread-crumbs cooked in the stove
and with matches for legs, a regular museum of childish things, such as
young girls hoard up and treasure as reminiscences. The room was bright
and warm with the noonday sun. Near the bed was a little table arranged
as an altar, covered with a white cloth. Two candles were burning and
flickering in the golden daylight.
Through the dead silence, broken only by sobs, could be heard the heavy
footsteps of a country priest going away. Then all was hushed, and the
tears which were falling round the dying girl suddenly stopped as though
by a miracle. In a few seconds all signs of disease and the anxious look
of pain had disappeared from Renée's thin face, and in their place an
ecstatic beauty, a look of supreme deliverance had come, at the sight of
which her father, her mother, and her friend instinctively fell on their
knees. A rapturous joy and peace had descended upon her. Her head sank
gently back on the pillow as though she were in a dream. Her eyes, which
were wide open and looking upward, seemed to be filled with the
infinite, and her expression gradually took the fixity of eternal
things. A holy aspiration seemed to rise from her whole face. All that
remained of life--one last breath, trembled on her silent lips, which
were half open and smiling. Her face had turned white. A silvery pallor
lent a dull splendour to her delicate skin and shapely forehead. It was
as though her whole face were looking upon another world than ours.
Death was drawing near her in the form of a great light.
It was the transfiguration of those heart diseases which enshroud dying
girls in all the beauty of their soul and then carry away to Heaven the
young faces of their victims.