But at this moment her thought shunned the death scenes. Around her floated smiling,ñaltaMartayMarí glorious forms, which filled her with a delicious joy such as she had but few times experienced before, accompanied by an unspeakable physical comfort. It seemed to her that she felt a most delicious sensation of warmth radiating from her heart even to her hands and feet, as though she were plunged in a bath of warm milk. At the same time soft fragrant hands held her eyelids closed, while a gentle breeze cooled her brow. The boudoir in the tower was filled with vague, subtle sounds, which her imagination transformed into mysterious harmonies. She was so beside herself that she could not tell whether she was in reality awake, although she had possession of all her faculties. Little by little she began to lose her power of volition; she tried to open her eyes and could not; she tried to separate her hands, which she kept folded, and she had no better success. A superior power held her in its sway, but so gently that for nothing in the world would she have broken those bands; it was a celestial swooning of her whole being, which carried her away into ecstasies such as she had never known before. Tears streamed down over her face like an exquisite ichor, bathing her lips with sweetness, and flowing from her lips into the very centre of her being, filling her heart as with a most gentle unction, as with a mighty perfume. This ichor intoxicated her and strengthened her at once, and she did not weary of drinking it. Its salubrious strength penetrated her emaciated body, bestowing on it an incomprehensible force. She entered into a life full and divine, where no pains existed; into an ecstatic lethargy full of soft delight, from which were born a throng of vague longings, like flowers opening for an instant and shedding perfume from their calyxes. The longings of her soul likewise spread and were quenched in the immense joy which took hold of her.