So
she lit one of the copper candelabra on the chimney piece and placed
it on the night table beside the corpse. A brilliant light suddenly
illumined the dead woman's face. The women were horror-struck. They
shuddered and escaped.
"Ah, she's changed; she's changed!" murmured Rose Mignon, who was the
last to remain.
She went away; she shut the door. Nana was left alone with upturned face
in the light cast by the candle. She was fruit of the charnel house, a
heap of matter and blood, a shovelful of corrupted flesh thrown down on
the pillow. The pustules had invaded the whole of the face, so that each
touched its neighbor. Fading and sunken, they had assumed the grayish
hue of mud; and on that formless pulp, where the features had ceased to
be traceable, they already resembled some decaying damp from the
grave. One eye, the left eye, had completely foundered among bubbling
purulence, and the other, which remained half open, looked like a deep,
black, ruinous hole. The nose was still suppurating. Quite a reddish
crush was peeling from one of the cheeks and invading the mouth, which
it distorted into a horrible grin. And over this loathsome and grotesque
mask of death the hair, the beautiful hair, still blazed like sunlight
and flowed downward in rippling gold.
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