sun on the tree-tops of the forests in autumn.

It is unnecessary to continue this description of the House of Claes,
in other parts of which many scenes of this history will occur: at
present, it is enough to make known its general arrangement.



CHAPTER II

Towards the end of August, 1812, on a Sunday evening after vespers, a
woman was sitting in a deep armchair placed before one of the windows
looking out upon the garden. The sun's rays fell obliquely upon the
house and athwart the parlor, breaking into fantastic lights on the
carved panellings of the wall, and wrapping the woman in a crimson
halo projected through the damask curtains which draped the window.
Even an ordinary painter, had he sketched this woman at this
particular moment, would assuredly have produced a striking picture of
a head that was full of pain and melancholy. The attitude of the body,
and that of the feet stretched out before her, showed the prostration
of one who loses consciousness of physical being in the concentration
of powers absorbed in a fixed idea: she was following its gleams in
the far future, just as sometimes on the shores of the sea, we gaze at
a ray of sunlight which pierces the clouds and draws a luminous line
to the horizon.

The hands of this woman hung nerveless outside the arms of her chair,
and her head, as if too heavy to hold up, lay back upon its cushions.
A dress of white cambric, very full and flowing, hindered any judgment
as to the proportions of her figure, and the bust was concealed by the