It was covered with a lace cloth and draped with green wreaths. In
the middle stood a little frame containing relics; at the corners
were two little orange-trees, and all along the edge were silver
candlesticks, porcelain vases containing sun-flowers, lilies,
peonies, and tufts of hydrangeas. This mound of bright colours
descended diagonally from the first floor to the carpet that
covered the sidewalk. Rare objects arrested one's eye. A golden
sugar-bowl was crowned with violets, earrings set with Alencon
stones were displayed on green moss, and two Chinese screens with
their bright landscapes were near by. Loulou, hidden beneath
roses, showed nothing but his blue head which looked like a piece
of lapis-lazuli.
The singers, the canopy-bearers and the children lined up against
the sides of the yard. Slowly the priest ascended the steps and
placed his shining sun on the lace cloth. Everybody knelt. There
was deep silence; and the censers slipping on their chains were
swung high in the air. A blue vapour rose in Felicite's room. She
opened her nostrils and inhaled it with a mystic sensuousness;
then she closed her lids. Her lips smiled. The beats of her heart
grew fainter and fainter, and vaguer, like a fountain giving out,
like an echo dying away;--and when she exhaled her last breath,
she thought she saw in the half-opened heavens a gigantic parrot
hovering above her head.
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