Page 423 - madame-bovary

their heads later on.
The room when they went in was full of mournful so-
lemnity. On the work-table, covered over with a white cloth,
there were five or six small balls of cotton in a silver dish,
near a large crucifix between two lighted candles.
Emma, her chin sunken upon her breast, had her eyes
inordinately wide open, and her poor hands wandered
over the sheets with that hideous and soft movement of the
dying, that seems as if they wanted already to cover them-
selves with the shroud. Pale as a statue and with eyes red as
fire, Charles, not weeping, stood opposite her at the foot of
the bed, while the priest, bending one knee, was muttering
words in a low voice.
She turned her face slowly, and seemed filled with joy
on seeing suddenly the violet stole, no doubt finding again,
in the midst of a temporary lull in her pain, the lost volup-
tuousness of her first mystical transports, with the visions
of eternal beatitude that were beginning.
The priest rose to take the crucifix; then she stretched
forward her neck as one who is athirst, and glueing her lips
to the body of the Man-God, she pressed upon it with all
her expiring strength the fullest kiss of love that she had
ever given. Then he recited the Misereatur and the Indul-
gentiam, dipped his right thumb in the oil, and began to
give extreme unction. First upon the eyes, that had so cov-
eted all worldly pomp; then upon the nostrils, that had been
greedy of the warm breeze and amorous odours; then upon
the mouth, that had uttered lies, that had curled with pride
and cried out in lewdness; then upon the hands that had de-

Madame Bovary