I was only surprised that she
had not heard me walking behind her, for my footsteps were quite
audible on the hard snow. But she must have been taken up with her
intentions and I resolved not to disturb her. She knelt down by
her father's grave, made the sign of the cross and began to pray.
At that moment, it struck midnight. At the last stroke, I saw
Mlle. Daae life{sic} her eyes to the sky and stretch out her arms
as though in ecstasy. I was wondering what the reason could be,
when I myself raised my head and everything within me seemed drawn
toward the invisible, WHICH WAS PLAYING THE MOST PERFECT MUSIC!
Christine and I knew that music; we had heard it as children.
But it had never been executed with such divine art, even by M. Daae.
I remembered all that Christine had told me of the Angel of Music.
The air was The Resurrection of Lazarus, which old M. Daae
used to play to us in his hours of melancholy and of faith.
If Christine's Angel had existed, he could not have played better,
that night, on the late musician's violin. When the music stopped,
I seemed to hear a noise from the skulls in the heap of bones;
it was as though they were chuckling and I could not help shuddering.
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