CHAPTER V
ONE day, I saw a little chamber she called her oratory; there was no
furniture except a priedieu and a little altar with a cross and some
vases of flowers. As for the rest, the walls and curtains were as white
as snow. She shut herself up in that room at times, but rarely since I
had known her.
I stepped to the door and saw Brigitte seated on the floor in the middle
of the room surrounded by the flowers she was throwing here and there.
She held in her hand a little wreath that appeared to be made of dried
grass, and she was breaking it to pieces.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
She trembled and stood up.
"It is nothing but a child's plaything," she said; "it is a rose wreath
that has faded here in the oratory; I have come here to change my flowers
as I have not attended to them for some time."
Her voice trembled, and she appeared to be about to faint. I recalled
that name of Brigitte la Rose that I had heard given her. I asked her if
it was not her crown of roses that she had just broken thus.
"No," she replied, turning pale.
"Yes," I cried, "yes, on my life. Give me the pieces."
I gathered them up and placed them on the altar, then I was silent, my
eyes fixed on the offering.
"Was I not right," she asked, "if it was my crown, to take it from the
wall where it has hung so long? What good are these remains? Brigitte la
Rose is no more, nor the flowers that baptized her.
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