It was to the work of his life, to his great statistical study, that he was bidding good-bye. Suddenly his head rolled over. He was dead.
“I expected as much,” murmured the doctor, who, seeing how scared the relations were, carefully laid him out, and closed his eyes.
Was it possible? Auguste had removed the table; they all remained chilled and dumb. Soon their sobs burst forth. Well! as there was nothing more to hope for, they would manage all the same to share the fortune. And Clotilde, after hastening to send Gustave away, to spare him the frightful spectacle, gave free vent to her tears, her head leaning against Berthe, who was sobbing the same as Valérie. Standing at the window, Théophile and Auguste were roughly rubbing their eyes. But Duveyrier, especially, exhibited a most extraordinary amount of grief, stifling heart-rending sobs in his handkerchief. No, really, he could not live without Clarisse; he would rather die at once, like the other one there; and the loss of his mistress, coming in the midst of all this mourning, caused him immense bitterness.
“Madame,” announced Clémence, “here are the sacraments.”
Abbé Mauduit appeared on the threshold. Behind his shoulder, one caught a glimpse of the face full of curiosity of a boy chorister. On beholding the display of grief, the priest questioned the doctor with a glance, whilst the latter extended his arms, as though to say it was not his fault. So, after mumbling a few prayers, Abbé Mauduit withdrew with an air of embarrassment, taking his paraphernalia along with him.
“It is a bad sign,” said Clémence to the other servants, standing in a group at the door of the ante-room. “The sacraments are not to be brought for nothing. You will see they will be back in the house before another year goes by.”
Monsieur Vabre’s funeral did not take place till the day after the morrow. Duveyrier, all the same, had inserted in the circulars announcing his demise, the words, “provided with the sacraments of the Church.”
As the warehouse did not open on that day, Octave was free. This holiday delighted him, as, for a long time past, he had wished to put his room straight, alter the position of some of the furniture, and arrange his few books in a little bookcase he had bought second-hand. He had risen earlier than usual, and was just finishing what he was about toward eight o’clock on the morning of the funeral, when Marie knocked at the door. She had brought him back a heap of books.
“As you do not come for them,” said she, “I am delighted to take the trouble to return them to you.”
But she blushingly refused to enter, shocked at the idea of being in a young man’s room. Their intimate relations had, moreover, completely ceased, in quite a natural manner, because he had not returned to her. And she remained quite as affectionate with him, always greeting him with a smile whenever they met.