At this idea I sobbed heart-broken, in the presence of the strange corpse, but the sardonic grin, left at the time of its flight by the evil soul like a stamp, still checked my emotions.
I effaced it with the tip of my finger, forming the mouth, which was now stiff, and hardly malleable into the shape I wanted.
At the moment, when I was stepping back, the better to judge of the effect, there was a gentle scratching at the door.
“It’s I, Nicolas, I, Emma!”
Poor simple girl! Should I tell her the truth? How would she take such a strange turn of destiny? I knew her; having been many times fooled, she would have reproached me with trying to mystify her, so I held my peace.
“Take a rest,” said she, in a low tone. “Barbe will take your place.”
“No, no,” said I, “let me be.”
I felt I must keep this vigil by the side of my dead uncle to the end. I had accused him of too many crimes, and I felt the need of asking forgiveness of his memory, and of that of my aunt; and that is why, despite the wild fury of the storm, we conversed all night long—the dead man, the chalk drawing and myself.
After Barbe had come at dawn, I went out into the cool of the morning, which soothes the skin and allays the fever of a long night of watching.
The park in autumn exhaled an odor of decay as of a cemetery. The great wind in the night had piled up all the leaves and my steps rustled in the thick bed. Only one or two could be seen here and there on the skeleton trees, and I could scarce tell whether they were leaves or sparrows.