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instinct which commanded him to remain, he perceived in the snow at his
feet, a few steps before him, a sort of undulation of the dimensions of
a human body--a little eminence, low, long, and narrow, like the mould
over a grave--a sepulchre in a white churchyard.
At the same time the voice cried out. It was from beneath the undulation
that it proceeded. The child bent down, crouching before the undulation,
and with both his hands began to clear it away.
Beneath the snow which he removed a form grew under his hands; and
suddenly in the hollow he had made there appeared a pale face.
The cry had not proceeded from that face. Its eyes were shut, and the
mouth open but full of snow.
It remained motionless; it stirred not under the hands of the child. The
child, whose fingers were numbed with frost, shuddered when he touched
its coldness. It was that of a woman. Her dishevelled hair was mingled
with the snow. The woman was dead.
Again the child set himself to sweep away the snow. The neck of the dead
woman appeared; then her shoulders, clothed in rags. Suddenly he felt
something move feebly under his touch. It was something small that was
buried, and which stirred. The child swiftly cleared away the snow,
discovering a wretched little body--thin, wan with cold, still alive,
lying naked on the dead woman's naked breast.
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