his clasped hands and his face encircled with long scanty hair; but if
those wax-like hands seemed lifeless, if there was not a feature of that
long-suffering face that stirred, its eyes were still alive,
inextinguishable eyes of love, whose flame sufficed to illumine the whole
of his expiring visage--the visage of a Christ upon the cross. And never
had the contrast been so clearly marked between his low forehead and
unintelligent, loutish, peasant air, and the divine splendour which came
from his poor human mask, ravaged and sanctified by suffering, sublime at
this last hour in the passionate radiance of his faith. His flesh had
melted, as it were; he was no longer a breath, nothing but a look, a
light.

Since he had been set down there his eyes had not strayed from the statue
of the Virgin. Nothing else existed around him. He did not see the
enormous multitude, he did not even hear the wild cries of the priests,
the incessant cries which shook this quivering crowd. His eyes alone
remained to him, his eyes burning with infinite tenderness, and they were
fixed upon the Virgin, never more to turn from her. They drank her in,
even unto death; they made a last effort of will to disappear, die out in
her. For an instant, however, his mouth half opened and his drawn visage
relaxed as an expression of celestial beatitude came over it. Then
nothing more stirred, his eyes remained wide open, still obstinately
fixed upon the white statue.

A few seconds elapsed. Marthe had felt a cold breath, chilling the roots
of her hair. "I say, madame, look!" she stammered.

Madame Sabathier, who felt anxious, pretended that she did not
understand. "What is it, my girl?"