to the carpet that covered the sidewalk. Rare objects arrested one's
eye. A golden sugar-bowl was crowned with violets, earrings set with
Alencon stones were displayed on green moss, and two Chinese screens
with their bright landscapes were near by. Loulou, hidden beneath
roses, showed nothing but his blue head which looked like a piece of
lapis-lazuli.

The singers, the canopy-bearers and the children lined up against the
sides of the yard. Slowly the priest ascended the steps and placed his
shining sun on the lace cloth. Everybody knelt. There was deep silence;
and the censers slipping on their chains were swung high in the air. A
blue vapour rose in Felicite's room. She opened her nostrils and inhaled
with a mystic sensuousness; then she closed her lids. Her lips smiled.
The beats of her heart grew fainter and fainter, and vaguer, like a
fountain giving out, like an echo dying away;--and when she exhaled her
last breath, she thought she saw in the half-opened heavens a gigantic
parrot hovering above her head.