Before it vanished behind the enormous flank of an arch, it bent its
head and looked down. Jeanne recognised the face!
On the instant, as if in obedience to a lightning will impelling her,
as if borne along by the rush of her destiny, pale, resolute, without
knowing what she would say, what she would do, she started upwards.
Having crossed the upper landing, she was about to place her foot on the
lighter stairway, when she stumbled and fell, remaining for a moment
prostrate. Thus Noemi, on leaving the chapel, did not see her, and
concluded she had gone down in search of the portrait of St. Francis,
Jeanne rose and started forward; she was a poor creature torn by
passions, to whom the images of celestial peace, grown rigid on the
sacred walls, called in vain. All before her was silence and void. She
was following paths unknown to her, swiftly, securely, as one in an
hypnotic trance. She passed through dark and narrow places, through
light and broad places, never hesitating, never looking to right
or left, all her senses sharpened and concentrated in her hearing,
following little sounds of distant whisperings, the faint complaining
of one door, the breath of wind from another, the brushing of a robe
against the frame.
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