in front of the bed, this cloud parted, as though on purpose,
and a ray of light, traversing the long window, suddenly illuminated
the Bishop's pale face. He was sleeping peacefully. He lay in
his bed almost completely dressed, on account of the cold of the
Basses-Alps, in a garment of brown wool, which covered his arms to
the wrists. His head was thrown back on the pillow, in the careless
attitude of repose; his hand, adorned with the pastoral ring,
and whence had fallen so many good deeds and so many holy actions,
was hanging over the edge of the bed. His whole face was illumined
with a vague expression of satisfaction, of hope, and of felicity.
It was more than a smile, and almost a radiance. He bore upon his
brow the indescribable reflection of a light which was invisible.
The soul of the just contemplates in sleep a mysterious heaven.

A reflection of that heaven rested on the Bishop.

It was, at the same time, a luminous transparency, for that heaven
was within him. That heaven was his conscience.

At the moment when the ray of moonlight superposed itself, so to speak,
upon that inward radiance, the sleeping Bishop seemed as in a glory.
It remained, however, gentle and veiled in an ineffable half-light. That
moon in the sky, that slumbering nature, that garden without a quiver,
that house which was so calm, the hour, the moment, the silence,
added some solemn and unspeakable quality to the venerable repose
of this man, and enveloped in a sort of serene and majestic aureole
that white hair, those closed eyes, that face in which all was hope
and all was confidence, that head of an old man, and that slumber
of an infant.