But these first words had hardly passed her lips when her voice faltered and died away. For a few seconds there was a silence as of utter amazement in the church. Of what was Livette thinking? Of what?--For the last minute, just God! her eyes had been obstinately fixed upon the black opening leading to the crypt. In that opening, on a level with the floor of the church, she had seen a head: it was the gipsy queen, who had come up from the crypt, in mischievous mood, curious to see Livette singing. Immediately below the great altar she emerged from the dark depths of the cellar amid the ascending smoke of the tapers. She came from her kingdom below, and with her copper crown and gleaming ear-rings, her swarthy skin and her fiery black eyes, she seemed to Livette a genuine devil from hell. Zinzara ascended two steps more and her bust appeared. She darted a keen, penetrating glance at Livette. That is why Livette was confused, and why she called with all her strength upon the women of compassion, the holy women above, for help against this woman from the chapel below. But the shutters that concealed the shrines were opened at last. And slowly, very slowly, they descended, swinging from side to side, with a slight jerky movement, at the ends of the two ropes, embellished here and there with little bunches of flowers. Is not this the image of every life? Is there aught else in the world? Something descends from heaven, something ascends from hell; and we suffer with hope and fear. "_Saintes Maries!_" Amid the vociferations of the crowd, Livette lost her head, she forgot to sing, and, carried away by the prevailing excitement, hope, and terror, she began to cry aloud with all the rest, like a lost soul, while Zinzara, from below, continued to gaze fixedly at her. What would you say, Monsieur le curé, to Livette's thoughts, who,--poor creature of the world we live in!--between the holy women and the woman devil, no longer knew which way to turn? Had she not reason to tremble? For the shrines descend to no purpose, they bring us naught but dead relics--while the sorceress is a creature of flesh and blood, whose feet walk, whose eyes see! Far away from us, in the land of dreams, of supernatural hopes, above the sky and the stars, are the sainted souls that have pity for mankind; as far from man as Paradise itself are the chaste women who embalm the crucified ones in herbs and spices, while _she_ is close at hand, always ready, always armed against the repose of Christian souls, she, queen of diabolic love, who, seeking only to gratify her caprice, makes sport of everything! Livette became more and more confused beneath Zinzara's steadfast glance, and she tried in vain, after silence had at last been restored, to resume the invocation. She faltered and stopped again.