of the tomb.




CHAPTER III.

HOW IT IS SOMETIMES DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH A DREAM FROM THE
REALITY.

Bussy had had time, before falling, to pass his handkerchief
under his shirt, and to buckle the belt of his sword over it,
so as to make a kind of bandage to the open wound whence the
blood flowed, but he had already lost blood enough to make him
faint. However, during his fainting fit, this is what Bussy saw,
or thought he saw. He found himself in a room with furniture of
carved wood, with a tapestry of figures, and a painted ceiling.
These figures, in all possible attitudes, holding flowers, carrying
arms, seemed to him to be stepping from the walls. Between the
two windows a portrait of a lady was hung. He, fixed to his bed,
lay regarding all this. All at once the lady of the portrait
seemed to move, and an adorable creature, clothed in a long white
robe, with fair hair falling over her shoulders, and with eyes
black as jet, with long lashes, and with a skin under which he
seemed to see the blood circulate, advanced toward the bed. This
woman was so beautiful, that Bussy made a violent effort to rise
and throw himself at her feet. But he seemed to be confined in
there by bonds like those which keep the dead body in the tomb,
while the soul mounts to the skies. This forced him to look at
the bed on which he was lying, and it seemed to him one of those