Anania approached the bed; cautiously as if fearing to wake her, he uncovered the corpse. A handkerchief covered with spots of darkened blood, already dry, swathed the neck, passed under the chin, over the ears, and was knotted among the thick black hair. Within this tragic circle the face was drawn in grey, the mouth still contorted with the death spasm. The vitreous line of the eyes was visible through the heavy, half-shut lids. Anania understood that she had severed the carotid artery. Horrified by the spots of blood, he at once recovered the dead face; leaving, however, the hair, which was twisted high on the pillow, partly exposed. His eyes had darkened with horror, his mouth writhed as if in mimicry of the contortion of the dead woman's lips. "My God! my God! this is awful!" he said, wringing his hands, and twisting his fingers. "Blood! She has shed her blood! How did she do it? How was she able to do it? She has cut her throat! How horrible! How wrong, how wrong I have been. Oh! my God! No, Aunt Grathia, don't shut the window! I am stifled. It was I who bade her kill herself!" He sobbed fearlessly--suffocated by remorse and horror. "She has died in despair, and I did not say to her one word of comfort. She was my mother after all, and she suffered in bringing me into the world! And I--have killed her, and I--still live!" Never as at that moment before the terrible mystery of death had he felt all the greatness, all the value of life. To live! Was it not enough to live--to move, to feel the perfumed breeze of the serene night--in order to be happy? Life! the most beautiful, the most sublime thing which an eternal and infinite will could create! And he lived; and he owed his life to the miserable creature who lay before him, deprived of this highest good! How was it he had never thought of that? Ah! he had never understood the value of life, because he had never seen the horror and the emptiness of death. And now she, she alone, had taken upon herself the task of revealing to him, by the shock of her death, the supreme joy of Life. She, at the price of her own life, had given him birth a second time; and this new moral life was immeasurably greater than the first. A veil fell from his eyes. He saw the contemptibleness of his passions, of his past griefs and hatreds. Had he suffered because of his mother's sin? Fool! What did that matter? What mattered a fact so trifling in comparison with the greatness of life? And because Olì had given him life, must she not represent to him the kindest of human creatures, to whom he must be eternally grateful, whom he must always love? He sobbed still, his heart filled with strange anguish through which came to him the joy of mere life. Yes, he suffered; therefore he lived. The widow drew to his side, took his wrung hands in hers, comforted and encouraged him.