Near the foot of the bier there was a bench, and there he took his seat and, resting his elbows on his knees, took his dishevelled head between his trembling hands. His thoughts were all of her whose poor, murdered clay lay encased above him. In turn he reviewed each scene of his life where it had touched upon her own. He evoked every word she had spoken to him since they had again met on that memorable night.
Thus he sat, clenching his hands and torturing his dull inert brain while the night wore slowly on. Later a still more frenzied mood obsessed him, a burning desire to look once more upon the sweet face he had loved so well. What was there to prevent him? Who was there to gainsay him?
He arose and uttered aloud the challenge in his madness. His voice echoed mournfully along the aisles and the sound of the echoes chilled him, though his purpose gathered strength.
Tristan advanced, and, after a moment's pause, with the silver embroidered hem of the pall in his hands, suddenly swept off that mantle of black cloth, setting up such a gust of wind as all but quenched the tapers. He caught up the bench upon which he had been sitting and, dragging it forward, mounted it and stood, his chest on a level with the coffin lid. His trembling hands fumbled along its surface. He found it unfastened. Without thought or care how he went about the thing, he raised it and let it crash to the ground. It fell on the stone flags with a noise like thunder, booming and reverberating through the gloomy vaults.
A form all in purest white lay there beneath his gaze, the face covered by a white veil. With deepest reverence, and a prayer to her departed soul to forgive the desecration of his loving hands, he tremblingly drew the veil aside.
How beautiful she was in the calm peace of death! She lay there like one gently sleeping, the faintest smile upon her lips, and, as he gazed, it was hard to believe that she was truly dead. Her lips had lost nothing of their natural color. They were as red as he had ever seen them in life.
How could this be?
The lips of the dead are wont to assume a livid hue.
Tristan stared for a moment, his awe and grief almost effaced by the intensity of his wonder. This face, so ivory pale, wore not the ashen aspect of one that would never wake again. There was a warmth about that pallor. And then he bit his nether lip until it bled, and it seemed a miracle that he did not scream, seeing how overwrought were his senses.
For it had seemed to him that the draperies on her bosom had slightly moved, in a gentle, almost imperceptible heave, as if she breathed. He looked—and there it came again!