He made no reply.  At last I could see him, and it was one of those spectacles that are stamped on the memory for ever.  He was standing, his elbows resting on the cornice of the low wainscot, which threw his body forward, so that it seemed bowed under the weight of his bent head.  His hair was as long as a woman’s, falling over his shoulders and hanging about his face, giving him a resemblance to the busts of the great men of the time of Louis XIV.  His face was perfectly white.  He constantly rubbed one leg against the other, with a mechanical action that nothing could have checked, and the incessant friction of the bones made a doleful sound.  Near him was a bed of moss on boards.

“He very rarely lies down,” said Mademoiselle de Villenoix; “but whenever he does, he sleeps for several days.”

Louis stood, as I beheld him, day and night with a fixed gaze, never winking his eyelids as we do.  Having asked Mademoiselle de Villenoix whether a little more light would hurt our friend, on her reply I opened the shutters a little way, and could see the expression of Lambert’s countenance.  Alas! he was wrinkled, white-headed, his eyes dull and lifeless as those of the blind.  His features seemed all drawn upwards to the top of his head.  I made several attempts to talk to him, but he did not hear me.  He was a wreck snatched from the grave, a conquest of life from death—­or of death from life!

I stayed for about an hour, sunk in unaccountable dreams, and lost in painful thought.  I listened to Mademoiselle de Villenoix, who told me every detail of this life—­that of a child in arms.

Suddenly Louis ceased rubbing his legs together, and said slowly: 

“The angels are white.”

I cannot express the effect produced upon me by this utterance, by the sound of the voice I had loved, whose accents, so painfully expected, had seemed to be lost for ever.  My eyes filled with tears in spite of every effort.  An involuntary instinct warned me, making me doubt whether Louis had really lost his reason.  I was indeed well assured that he neither saw nor heard me; but the sweetness of his tone, which seemed to reveal heavenly happiness, gave his speech an amazing effect.  These words, the incomplete revelation of an unknown world, rang in our souls like some glorious distant bells in the depth of a dark night.  I was no longer surprised that Mademoiselle de Villenoix considered Lambert to be perfectly sane.  The life of the soul had perhaps subdued that of the body.  His faithful companion had, no doubt —­as I had at that moment—­intuitions of that melodious and beautiful existence to which we give the name of Heaven in its highest meaning.

This woman, this angel, always was with him, seated at her embroidery frame; and each time she drew the needle out she gazed at Lambert with sad and tender feeling.  Unable to endure this terrible sight—­for I could not, like Mademoiselle de Villenoix, read all his secrets—­I went out, and she came with me to walk for a few minutes and talk of herself and of Lambert.