La Grenadiere by Honoré de Balzac
page 30 of 33 (90%)
page 30 of 33 (90%)
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a deep sigh told them that she still lived, and of a struggle within
her; then at last it ceased. Every one burst into tears except Marie. He, poor child, was still too young to know what death meant. Annette and the vinedresser's wife closed the eyes of the adorable woman, whose beauty shone out in all its radiance after death. Then the women took possession of the chamber of death, removed the furniture, wrapped the dead in her winding-sheet, and laid her upon the couch. They lit tapers about her, and arranged everything--the crucifix, the sprigs of box, and the holy-water stoup--after the custom of the countryside, bolting the shutters and drawing the curtains. Later the curate came to pass the night in prayer with Louis, who refused to leave his mother. On Tuesday morning an old woman and two children and a vinedresser's wife followed the dead to her grave. These were the only mourners. Yet this was a woman whose wit and beauty and charm had won a European reputation, a woman whose funeral, if it had taken place in London, would have been recorded in pompous newspaper paragraphs, as a sort of aristocratic rite, if she had not committed the sweetest of crimes, a crime always expiated in this world, so that the pardoned spirit may enter heaven. Marie cried when they threw the earth on his mother's coffin; he understood that he should see her no more. A simple, wooden cross, set up to mark her grave, bore this inscription, due to the cure of Saint-Cyr:-- HERE LIES AN UNHAPPY WOMAN, WHO DIED AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-SIX. KNOWN IN HEAVEN BY THE NAME OF AUGUSTA. |
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