The pure white chamber seemed to be like the individuals collected therein, motionless, and in a state of surprise and expectation.

Where could all these sins be found?
They must certainly come from outside in this great band of sun's rays, filled with dancing specks of dust, which appeared to bring germs of life even to this great royal couch, so white and cold from the coming of death to a pure young maiden.
Monseigneur meditated a moment, fixing his looks again upon Angelique, assuring himself that the slight breath had not ceased, struggling against all human emotion, as he saw how thin she was, with the beauty of an archangel, already immaterial.

His voice retained the authority of a divine disinterestedness, and his thumb did not tremble when he dipped it into the sacred oils as he commenced the unctions on the five parts of the body where dwell the senses: the five windows by which evil enters into the soul.
First upon the eyes, upon the closed eyelids, the right and then the left; and slowly, lightly, he traced with his thumb the sign of the Cross.
"_Per istam sanctam unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum deliquisti_." ("By this holy anointing and His gracious mercy, the Lord forgive whatever sins thou hast committed through _seeing_.")[*] [*] This formula is repeated with reference to the other senses--hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
And the sins of the sight were redeemed; lascivious looks, immodest curiosity, the pride of spectacles, unwholesome readings, tears shed for guilty troubles.
And she, dear child, knew no other book than the "Golden Legend," no other horizon than the apse of the Cathedral, which hid from view all the rest of the world.

She had wept only in the struggle of obedience and the renunciation of passion.
The Abbe Cornille wiped both her eyes with a bit of cotton, which he afterwards put into one of the little cornets of paper.
Then Monseigneur anointed the ears, with their lobes as delicate and transparent as pearl, first the right ear, afterwards the left, scarcely moistened with the sign of the cross.
"_Per istam sanctam unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per auditum deliquisti_." So all the abominations of hearing were atoned for: all the words and music which corrupt, the slanders, the calumnies, the blasphemies, the sinful propositions listened to with complacency, the falsehoods of love which aided the forgetfulness of duty, the profane songs which excited the senses, the violins of the orchestra which, as it were, wept voluptuously under the brilliant lights.
She in her isolated life, like that of a cloistered nun--she had never even heard the free gossip of the neighbours, or the oath of a carman as he whips his horses.

The only music that had ever entered her ears was that of the sacred hymns, the rumblings of the organs, the confused murmurings of prayers, with which at times vibrated all this fresh little house, so close to the side of the great church.
The Abbe, after having dried the ears with cotton, put that bit also into one of the white cornets.
Monseigneur now passed to the nostrils, the right and then the left, like two petals of a white rose, which he purified by touching them with the sacred oil and making on them the sign of the cross.
"_Per istam sanctam unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per odoratum deliquisti_." And the sense of smell returned to its primitive innocence, cleansed from all stain: not only from the carnal disgrace of perfumes, from the seduction of flowers with breath too sweet, from the scattered fragrances of the air which put the soul to sleep; but yet again from the faults of the interior sense, the bad examples given to others, and the contagious pestilence of scandal.