第21章

sleep without dreams or any sort of uneasiness; when I woke we prayed together, and had just finished when you came back.""Well, madame," said the doctor, "if you will, we can pray again;kneel down, and let us say the 'Veni Sancte Spiritus'."She obeyed, and said the prayer with much unction and piety.The prayer finished, M.Pirot was about to take up the pen to go on with the confession, when she said, "Pray let me submit to you one question which is troubling me.Yesterday you gave me great hope of the mercy of God; but I cannot presume to hope I shall be saved without spending a long time in purgatory; my crime is far too atrocious to be pardoned on any other conditions; and when I have attained to a love of God far greater than I can feel here, I should not expect to be saved before my stains have been purified by fire, without suffering the penalty that my sins have deserved.But I have been told that the flames of purgatory where souls are burned for a time are just the same as the flames of hell where those who are damned burn through all eternity tell me, then, how can a soul awaking in purgatory at the moment of separation from this body be sure that she is not really in hell? how can she know that the flames that burn her and consume not will some day cease? For the torment she suffers is like that of the damned, and the flames wherewith she is burned are even as the flames of hell.This I would fain know, that at this awful moment I may feel no doubt, that I may know for certain whether I dare hope or must despair.""Madame," replied the doctor, "you are right, and God is too just to add the horror of uncertainty to His rightful punishments.At that moment when the soul quits her earthly body the judgment of God is passed upon her: she hears the sentence of pardon or of doom; she knows whether she is in the state of grace or of mortal sin; she sees whether she is to be plunged forever into hell, or if God sends her for a time to purgatory.This sentence, madame, you will learn at the very instant when the executioner's axe strikes you; unless, indeed, the fire of charity has so purified you in this life that you may pass, without any purgatory at all, straight to the home of the blessed who surround the throne of the Lord, there to receive a recompense for earthly martyrdom.""Sir," replied the marquise, "I have such faith in all you say that Ifeel I understand it all now, and I am satisfied."The doctor and the marquise then resumed the confession that was interrupted the night before.The marquise had during the night recollected certain articles that she wanted to add.So they continued, the doctor making her pause now and then in the narration of the heavier offences to recite an act of contrition.

After an hour and a half they came to tell her to go down.The registrar was waiting to read her the sentence.She listened very calmly, kneeling, only moving her head; then, with no alteration in her voice, she said, "In a moment: we will have one word more, the doctor and I, and then I am at your disposal." She then continued to dictate the rest of her confession.When she reached the end, she begged him to offer a short prayer with her, that God might help her to appear with such becoming contrition before her judges as should atone for her scandalous effrontery.She then took up her cloak, a prayer-book which Father Chavigny had left with her, and followed the concierge, who led her to the torture chamber, where her sentence was to be read.

First, there was an examination which lasted five hours.The marquise told all she had promised to tell, denying that she had any accomplices, and affirming that she knew nothing of the composition of the poisons she had administered, and nothing of their antidotes.

When this was done, and the judges saw that they could extract nothing further, they signed to the registrar to read the sentence.

She stood to hear it: it was as follows: