Hour by hour the muscles grew rigid,
while the mind remained bright, until after ten days of fiendish
torture she died in convulsion.
One had heard and read a great deal about death, and even seen
a little of it, and knew by heart the thousand commonplaces of
religion and poetry which seemed to deaden one's senses and veil
the horror. Society being immortal, could put on immortality at
will. Adams being mortal, felt only the mortality. Death took
features altogether new to him, in these rich and sensuous
surroundings. Nature enjoyed it, played with it, the horror added
to her charm, she liked the torture, and smothered her victim
with caresses. Never had one seen her so winning. The hot Italian
summer brooded outside, over the market-place and the picturesque
peasants, and, in the singular color of the Tuscan atmosphere,
the hills and vineyards of the Apennines seemed bursting with
mid-summer blood. The sick-room itself glowed with the Italian
joy of life; friends filled it; no harsh northern lights pierced
the soft shadows; even the dying women shared the sense of the
Italian summer, the soft, velvet air, the humor, the courage, the
sensual fulness of Nature and man. She faced death, as women
mostly do, bravely and even gaily, racked slowly to
unconsciousness, but yielding only to violence, as a soldier
sabred in battle.
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