Then he rose to his feet, and striding up and down the room like a madman,
he cried in smothered accents:

"Faith! Faith! Doubt is killing me!"

A moment later he shook his beautiful head and burst into a terrible
laugh.

"Very well," he said. "The proof is a terrible one, but I require this
proof. I must descend into the tomb to obtain it: well, then, I will
descend into the tomb. I must consult the sombre oracle of death
concerning the mysteries of life: well, then, I will consult it."

At this moment the glass chimney of the lamp burst, falling to the floor
in a thousand fragments; the lurid flame sent forth a black smoke that
filled the room with shadows which crept along the walls, mingled together
on the ceiling, and crossed one another on the floor; the furniture seemed
to be moving, the ceiling sinking down, and the walls receding.

In the midst of this demon dance of lights and shadows, the flame of the
lamp went out, as if in obedience to an invisible breath, and in the
darkness that followed all was silence.

Something extraordinary must have occurred in Berta's house, for the nurse
seemed to have been seized by a sudden fit of restlessness that would not
let her sit still for a moment. She went to and fro, upstairs and down,
out and in, with the mechanical movement of an automaton. It was a sort of
nervous attack that had in a moment increased twofold the housekeeper's
domestic activity. Suddenly she would stand still, and placing her