peculiar extended, pliant, and almost tapering grace, that gives it
every natural delicacy and all the distinction of a beautiful academic
study. It is subtly proportioned and in perfect taste: the drawing does
not fall far short of the sentiment.

You have not forgotten the effect of that large and slightly hip-shot
body, with its small, thin, and fine head slightly fallen to one side,
so livid and so perfectly limpid in its pallor, neither shrivelled nor
drawn, and from which all suffering has disappeared, as it descends
with so much beatitude to rest for a moment among the strange beauties
of the death of the just! Recollect how heavily it hangs and how
precious it is to support, in what a lifeless attitude it glides along
the sudarium, with what agonized affection it is received by the
outstretched hands and arms of the women. Is there anything more
touching? One of his feet, livid and pierced, encounters at the foot of
the Cross the bare shoulder of Magdalen. It does not rest upon it, but
grazes it. The contact is scarcely noticeable, we divine it rather than
see it. It would have been profane to insist upon it, it would have been
cruel not to have made us believe in it. All Rubens's furtive
sensitiveness is in this imperceptible contact that says so many things,
respects them all, and makes them affecting.

The sinner is admirable. She is incontestably the best piece of work in
the picture, the most delicate, the most personal, one of the best
figures of women, moreover, that Rubens ever executed in his career that
was so fertile in feminine creations. This delicious figure has its
legend; how should it not have, its very perfection having become
legendary! It is probable that this beautiful maiden with the black
eyes, with the firm glance, with the clear-cut profile, is a portrait,
and the portrait is that of Isabella Brandt, whom he had married two