Then, when Baudu arrived in that small, gloomy room, where he spent hours seated on a chair, she assumed an air of gaiety, saying to Denise—“Don't come to-morrow, I would rather not. But on Sunday I shall expect you; you can spend the afternoon with me.”
The next morning, at six o'clock, Geneviève expired after four hours' fearful agony. The funeral took place on a Saturday, a fearfully black, gloomy day, under a sooty sky which hung over the shivering city. The Old Elbeuf, hung with white linen, lighted up the street with a bright spot, and the candles burning in the fading day seemed so many stars drowned in the twilight The coffin was covered with wreaths and bouquets of white roses; it was a narrow child's coffin, placed in the obscure passage of the house on a level with the pavement, so near the gutter that the passing carriages had already splashed the coverings. The whole neighbourhood exhaled a dampness, a cellar-like mouldy odour, with its continual rush of pedestrians on the muddy pavement.
At nine o'clock Denise came over to stay with her aunt. But as the funeral was starting, the latter—who had ceased weeping, her eyes burnt with tears—begged her to follow the body and look after her uncle, whose mute affliction and almost idiotic grief filled the family with anxiety. Below, the young girl found the street full of people, for the small traders in the neighbourhood were anxious to show the Baudus a mark of sympathy, and in this eagerness there was also a sort of manifestation against The Ladies' Paradise, whom they accused of causing Geneviève's slow agony. All the victims of the monster were there—Bédoré and sister from the hosier's shop in the Rue Gaillon, the furriers, Vanpouille Brothers, and Deslignières the toyman, and Piot and Rivoire the furniture dealers; even Mademoiselle Tatin from the underclothing shop, and the glover Quinette, long since cleared off by bankruptcy, had made it a duty to come, the one from Batignolle, the other from the Bastille, where they had been obliged to take situations. Whilst waiting for the hearse, which was late, these people, tramping about in the mud, cast glances of hatred towards The Ladies' Paradise, the bright windows and gay displays of which seemed an insult in face of The Old Elbeuf, which, with its funeral trappings and glimmering candles, cast a gloom over the other side of the street A few curious faces appeared at the plate-glass windows; but the colossus maintained the indifference of a machine going at full speed, unconscious of the deaths it may cause on the road.
Denise looked round for her brother Jean, whom she at last perceived standing before Bourras's shop, and she went and asked him to walk with his uncle, to assist him if he could not get along. For the last few weeks Jean had been very grave, as if tormented by some worry. To-day, buttoned up in his black frock-coat, a full grown man, earning his twenty francs a day, he seemed so dignified and so sad that his sister was surprised, for she had no idea he loved his cousin so much as that. Desirous of sparing Pépé this needless grief, she had left him with Madame Gras, intending to go and fetch him in the afternoon to see his uncle and aunt.
The hearse had still not arrived, and Denise, greatly affected, was watching the candles burn, when she was startled by a well-known voice behind her. It was Bourras. He had called the chestnut-seller opposite, in his little box, against the public-house, and said to him:
“I say, Vigouroux, just keep a look-out for me a bit, will you? You see I've closed the door. If any one comes tell them to call again. But don't let that disturb you, no one will come.”
Then he took his stand on the pavement, waiting like the others. Denise, feeling rather awkward, glanced at his shop. He entirely abandoned it now; there was nothing left but a disorderly array of umbrellas eaten up by the damp air, and canes blackened by the gas. The embellishments that he had made, the delicate green paint work, the glasses, the gilded sign, were all cracking, already getting dirty, presenting that rapid and lamentable decrepitude of false luxury laid over ruins. But though the old crevices were re-appearing, though the spots of damp had sprung up over the gildings, the house still held its ground obstinately, hanging on to the flanks of The Ladies' Paradise like a dishonouring wart, which, although cracked and rotten, refused to fall off.
“Ah! the scoundrels,” growled Bourras, “they won't even let her be carried away.”
The hearse, which had at last arrived, had just got into collision with one of The Ladies' Paradise vans, which was spinning along, shedding in the mist its starry radiance, with the rapid trot of two superb horses. And the old man cast on Denise an oblique glance, lighted up under his bushy eyebrows. Slowly, the funeral started off, splashing through the muddy pools, amid the silence of the omnibuses and carriages suddenly pulled up. When the coffin, draped with white, crossed the Place Gaillon, the sombre looks of the cortege were once more plunged into the windows of the big shop, where two saleswomen alone had run up to look on, pleased at this distraction. Baudu followed the hearse with a heavy mechanical step, refusing by a sign the arm offered by Jean, who was walking with him. Then, after a long-string of people, came three mourning coaches. As they passed the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, Robineau ran up to join the cortege, very pale, and looking much older.
At Saint-Roch, a great many women were waiting, the small traders of the neighbourhood, who had been afraid of the crowd at the house. The manifestation was developing into quite a riot; and when, after the service, the procession started off back, all the men followed, although it was a long walk from the Rue Saint-Honoré to the Montmartre Cemetery. They had to go up the Rue Saint-Roch, and once more pass The Ladies' Paradise. It was a sort of obsession; this poor young girl's body was paraded round the big shop like the first victim fallen in time of revolution. At the door some red flannels were flapping like so many flags, and a display of carpets blazed forth in a florescence of enormous roses and full-blown pæonies. Denise had got into one of the coaches, being agitated by some smarting doubts, her heart oppressed by such a feeling of grief that she had not the strength to walk At that moment there was a stop, in the Rue du Dix-Décembre, before the scaffolding of the new façade which still obstructed the thoroughfare. 'And the young girl observed old Bourras, left behind, dragging along with difficulty, close to the wheels of the coach in which she was riding alone. He would never get as far as the cemetery, she thought. He raised his head, looked at her, and all at once got into the coach.