ABSTRACT
The narrator’s determination to provide a single and authoritative interpretation for her story is further emphasised a little way in. Two garlands of lilies and roses have been brought from heaven, by a guardian angel, to Cecilie and Valerian, the husband whom she has converted on their wedding night. The narrator has removed the words of the preface from their original context so as to expose the lines of her own argument more clearly. The Christians, for the most part ‘povre folkes’ living outside the town, are a persecuted minority, practising their faith in secret; their chief priest, Pope Urban, has gone into hiding in the catacombs. The adjutant witnesses to having seen the brothers’ souls ascend to heaven in the company of angels. His witness marks his own conversion, secures the conversion of others, and sends him to a martyr’s death.
