Summary

After his arrival from Liverpool, Franciscus received another assignment from the church that would take almost two years. While he suffered through the damp and the cold, he looked forward to painting frescoes, an opportunity promised by the church after the completion of the first project. Despite this, he began work early on the frescoes, trying different colors on different boards, testing their viability in different shades of light, and experimenting with pigmentation as he went.

The narrator uses the journals of Urbain firsthand in the text, covering the events leading up to Franciscus's death. After New Years, pneumonia took hold of Franciscus, and his condition worsened despite the attempts of Celine, who, along with Urbain, stayed up long through the night to take care of her husband. As Franciscus struggled to regain normalcy in his breathing, he was admitted to the...