gray hair, out of curl forevermore, hanging down tangled and disordered.

"'In the name of all that is holy! how lean she is,' exclaimed Sapeur in
a contemptuous tone.

"We carried her into the room, and as the women did not put in an
appearance I, with the assistance of the stable lad, dressed the corpse
for burial.

"I washed her disfigured face. Under the touch of my finger an eye was
slightly opened and regarded me with that pale, cold look, that terrible
look of a corpse which seems to come from the beyond. I braided as well
as I could her dishevelled hair and with my clumsy hands arranged on her
head a novel and singular coiffure. Then I took off her dripping wet
garments, baring, not without a feeling of shame, as though I had been
guilty of some profanation, her shoulders and her chest and her long
arms, as slim as the twigs of a tree.

"I next went to fetch some flowers, poppies, bluets, marguerites and
fresh, sweet-smelling grass with which to strew her funeral couch.

"I then had to go through the usual formalities, as I was alone to attend
to everything. A letter found in her pocket, written at the last moment,
requested that her body be buried in the village in which she had passed
the last days of her life. A sad suspicion weighed on my heart. Was it
not on my account that she wished to be laid to rest in this place?

"Toward evening all the female gossips of the locality came to view the
remains of the defunct, but I would not allow a single person to enter. I
wanted to be alone, and I watched beside her all night.