Patrasche stopped at the gates of the cathedral.
He had waited here many times while Nello gazed at the beautiful paintings inside.
The tall gates had been blown open by the wind.
Patrasche crept through the gates and up to the cathedral doors.
It was long after midnight, and the huge wooden doors were closed.
The Christmas Eve worshippers who had gone to midnight mass had gone home.
Patrasche tried to push open one of the tall doors.
It was locked.
He tried another one.
It was shut too.
He walked around the side of the cathedral.
There he found a door someone had forgotten to lock, and he pushed his way inside.
The cathedral was almost empty.
As Patrasche walked along the stone floor, snow fell from his fur.
He left a little trail of snow behind him.
Patrasche saw a figure lying in front of the altar.
It was Nello.
Patrasche crept up and put his paw on Nello's head.
Nello cried out softly and grabbed Patrasche gently.
"Let us lie down and die together," he murmured.
"No one needs us, and we are all alone."
Patrasche put his head upon the young boy's chest.
There were great tears in the dog's sad brown eyes.
The two friends lay close together in the freezing air.
The cathedral's stone floor was as cold as snow.
They fell asleep, and together they dreamed.
They dreamed of happier days─when they chased each other through the fields, played with little Alois, or watched boats sail on the canal.
Suddenly, pale rays of white light broke through the darkness.
It was the moon.
The snow had stopped falling and the clouds had slipped away.
The moon's light shone through the high windows in the cathedral's arches.
Rubens' great paintings looked down on the still bodies on the stone floor.
Curtains usually covered the two pictures on either side of the altar.
When Nello had first entered in the dark, he had pulled the curtains aside.
The two paintings were Rubens' The Elevation of the Cross and The Descent from the Cross.
For one moment, they were both visible in the moonlight.
Nello stood up.
He stared at the paintings with joy and awe.
Tears fell from his eyes.
He cried out, "I have seen them at last!
It is enough!"
He fell back down and pulled himself close to Patrasche.
They lay together again.
The next morning, they were dead.
In the morning, a crowd gathered around their still forms.
The miller was there.
"I was cruel to him," he wept.
"He should have been my son."
Little Alois sobbed bitterly.
She stroked Nello's forehead.
"Today was our playday," she said sadly.
A stranger arrived at the cathedral.
"I am looking for the boy who did this drawing!" he said.
He was a famous artist, and he held Nello's picture in his hand.
"This should be the winning picture," he insisted, "and I want to teach this young man."
But it was too late.
Nello and Patrasche, who had spent their lives together, had died together.
Nello's arms hugged Patrasche's body tightly, so the villagers buried them together too.
The little boy and the dog of Flanders, loyal and loving to the end!
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