Tears dimmed my eyes. I took off my hat. If my uncle had perished fifteen years before, in the fullness of happiness and wisdom, that Lerne of long ago could not have been more beautiful to see.
But I could not go on dreaming in this way, keeping up a conversation with a corpse on a frequented road. So I raised him in my arms calmly, deliberately, and placed him on my left; a strap from the grid fixed him firmly in the seat. With his gloves on his hands again, his cap pulled down over his eyes, his spectacles on his nose, he seemed as if asleep.
We set off side by side.
Nobody at Grey noted the stiffness of my neighbor, and I was able to take him back to Fonval, with veneration in my heart for the dead man, and full of pity for this old lover who had suffered so much. I forgot the offenses in the presence of the offender’s death. He filled me with a profound respect, I must also say, with an invincible repugnance, which kept me from him in the depths of my seat.
Since our meeting in the middle of the labyrinth on the morning of my arrival, I had not addressed a word to the Germans. I went to seek them in the laboratory, leaving the car and its sepulchral chauffeur in front of the hall door in charge of the servant.
The assistants understood at once, by my gesticulations, that something extraordinary had happened, and followed me. They had that anxious look of criminals who foresee disaster in every trifle. When they were certain what had befallen them, the three accomplices could not hide their dismay and anxiety. They talked together excitedly. Johann was domineering: the two others became obsequious. I awaited their pleasure.
At last they helped me to carry the Professor’s body up to his room, and on to the bed.
Emma saw us, gave a cry and fled, while the Germans made off without more ado.
Barbe came, and I left her with my uncle. The stout serving-woman wept a few tears, paying a tribute to Death as a thing in itself, and not to the shade of her master.
She looked at him from the top of her bulky person. Lerne was changing. The nose became pinched—the nails became blue.