Frau Stacher had fallen into a last unconsciousness, but her breathing was still terribly loud, like wind through a vacant room. Fanny on her knees by the bed, was weeping and praying and kissing her aunt's thin hand rather extravagantly, after her way.
The monk's eyes, accustomed to the sight of death, knew without a word from Hermann that the end was very near. On the little, white, lace-covered table by the bed, on which Maria had placed a lighted candle, a basin of water and a towel, he laid the Blessed Oils, those final oils with which he was to anoint Frau Stacher's noisy tenement, commending it to mercy....
Her broad-lidded blue eyes, that through tears would look no more on misery, no more on starving children, no, never anymore....
Her ears, that would hear no further cries of woe, nor any unprofitable discourse....
Her nostrils, that would no more weakly dilate at smell of needed food....
Her tongue, that would frame no more its words of gentle, helpless pity....
Her hands, that had once given so freely, would be held out no more to receive. Never again would she have to suffer humble uncertainty for the gifts of food and raiment. The body, no longer needing food, was itself become as raiment, cast off....
Her feet, that had forever fallen away from the ranks of those who in aged misery still flitted through the wintry streets of Vienna seeking their midday meal of charity ... the Mariahilferstrasse, endless, the Alserstrasse separated from the Hoher Markt by so many wide, open places, the narrow, crowded Kaerntnerstrasse and all those other streets that had sounded a last time to her diminished step....
Irma would never again give her the thin part of the soup, and never again would she watch to see that her sister-in-law drew back the curtains of the alcove. Alcove! Ildefonse Stacher, born von Berg, in the name of Principalities and Powers, in the name of the Cherubim and Seraphim, was about to take possession of her whole heavenly mansion, her very own from all time unto all time, and big and beautiful.