Paul found that there was no bed left for him, and climbed into the hay-loft, where he sat upright all night buried in thought.
At ten o’clock in the morning the first guests arrived, and, indeed, such guests as had neither accepted the invitation nor been expected at all. When Paul saw them coming his first thought was, “Have I provided enough food and drink?” and the more the carriages came rolling into the yard, and entire strangers kept stretching out their black-gloved hands to his family, the more a voice seemed to say to him, “There won’t be enough.”
His father had again one of his days of grandeur. He sat in his portable chair as if on a throne, his two eldest sons like vassals near him, and allowed himself to be admired in his grief.
Whenever a new guest came up to him he pressed the proffered right hand in both of his, as if he were the one to console, bent his grief-stricken head, and spoke broken words in a voice stifled with sobs, such as: “Yes, she has gone! gone! she’s gone! There is no balm for the wounds of the heart! May heaven make amends to her for the grief earth has caused her!” and so forth.
In between he called out to Paul, “My son, you do not provide any wine! My son, remember to offer our guests some refreshment.”
Paul ran from one to the other like a waiter, anxiously counting the bottles, which diminished rapidly, and envying his sisters, who, in their fine black dresses, could quietly sit in a corner and cry to their hearts’ content, while the strange sister-in-law consoled them. He had not thought of the mourning-dresses in his calculation at all, and it was great good-luck that the merchant sent them on credit, otherwise his sisters could not have appeared at all.
He himself did not look like a mourner in his simple gray suit, and most of the guests who did not know him went quietly past him, and only noticed his existence when he offered them wine and cigars.
In the yard a number of women assembled who had loved his mother on account of her quiet, simple manners, and who now wanted to follow the cortege without really belonging to the mourners.
The sharp eye of his father soon discovered them.
“Paul, my son,” he cried, “go out and urge the ladies to enter the house of mourning.”