When, with outstretched arms I held her before the window, Marie, whose head was thrown back, looked at the sky. The heavens were of a deep blue, sown with stars; the calm air was full of warm, slow quivers. The eyes of the dying girl were fixed upon the stars, she breathed the lukewarm air. Her visage, until then resigned, had a painful contraction, like a revolt of the expiring flesh in the presence of the breath of life. She was absorbed in her contemplation, her glance wandered about in the sombre space, she seemed to be dreaming her last dream.
I heard her murmur and bent down. She said:
"I do not see them, they are not kissing."
And she gently agitated her poor hands in the air, as if to tear away the veil which was stretched before her sight.
Then, I lifted up her head. The shadows, in the square patch of yellow light, were still kissing. They were blacker, more energetic, and their sharpness made them frightful. Marie saw them.
A glad smile showed itself upon her lips. With childish joy, with a youthful voice, she approached my ear, caressing me with her hand.
"Oh! I see them, I see them," she said. "They are kissing. They have enormous heads, all black. I am afraid. Tell them that we are together, that they must come no more to torment us. One night they kissed each other thus; we also kissed on our side, and it was from that moment that I no longer liked Laurence. Do you remember that night? Come closer that I may kiss you. It will be our second kiss, that of our betrothal."
Marie tremblingly placed her mouth against mine. I felt pass between my lips a breath accompanied by a slight cry. The body which I held in my arms had a convulsion, then relaxed.
I glanced at Marie's eyes. They were wide open, but I searched vainly for the blue glimmer which had burned in them on that night of which she had just spoken.
Marie was dead, dead in my arms.