‘Come here, Voriau!’ called Fortune.
The big black dog, who had gone to sniff at the coffin, came back sulkily.
‘Why has the dog been brought?’ exclaimed Rosalie.
‘Oh! he followed us,’ said Lisa, smiling quietly.
They were all chatting together in subdued tones round the baby’s coffin. The father and mother occasionally forgot all about it, but on catching sight of it again, lying between them at their feet, they relapsed into silence.
‘And so old Bambousse wouldn’t come?’ said La Rousse. Mother Brichet raised her eyes to heaven.
‘He threatened to break everything to pieces yesterday when the little one died,’ said she. ‘No, no, I must say that he is not a good man. Didn’t he nearly strangle me, crying out that he had been robbed, and that he would have given one of his cornfields for the little one to have died three days before the wedding?’
‘One can never tell what will happen,’ remarked Fortune with a knowing look.
‘What’s the good of the old man putting himself out about it? We are married, all the same, now,’ added Rosalie.
Then they exchanged a smile across the little coffin while Lisa and La Rousse nudged each other with their elbows. But afterwards they all became very serious again. Fortune picked up a clod of earth to throw at Voriau, who was now prowling about amongst the old tombstones.