Rome the Catholic and the Princely was dead, lying there like marble on that funeral bed.

She had been unable to go to the humble, the suffering ones of the world, and had just expired amidst the impotent cry of her egotistical passion when it was too late either to love or to create.

Never more would children be born of her, the old Roman house was henceforth empty, sterile, beyond possibility of awakening.

Pierre whose soul mourned such a splendid dream, was so grieved at seeing her thus motionless and frigid, that he felt himself fainting.

He feared lest he might fall upon the step beside the bed, and so struggled to his feet and drew aside.
Then, as he sought refuge in a window recess in order that he might try to recover self-possession, he was astonished to perceive Victorine seated there on a bench which the hangings half concealed.