Her thin, delicate face had assumed a dreamy expression, her eyes
wandering away to the haunting thought of her sufferings, her features
motionless, as if she had fallen asleep in a fixed thought until the
expected shock of happiness should waken her. She was absent from
herself, ready, however, to return to consciousness whenever God might
will it. And, indeed, this delicious infantile creature, this little girl
of three-and-twenty, still a child as when an accident had struck her,
delaying her growth, preventing her from becoming a woman, was at last
ready to receive the visit of the angel, the miraculous shock which would
draw her out of her torpor and set her upright once more. Her morning
ecstasy continued; she had clasped her hands, and a leap of her whole
being had ravished her from earth as soon as she had perceived the image
of the Blessed Virgin yonder. And now she prayed and offered herself
divinely.
It was an hour of great mental trouble for Pierre. He felt that the drama
of his priestly life was about to be enacted, and that if he did not
recover faith in this crisis, it would never return to him.
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