The Patrol-officer, the priest, the magistrate, and Sange Moarte's mother entered the room.
Right across the threshold lay the girl's father dead drunk; he got so tipsy yesterday from sheer sorrow that he will need all to-day and all to-morrow to sleep it off. In the middle of the room stood the pine-wood coffin, bedaubed with glaring roses fresh from the brush of a rural artist; within it lay the girl (she was only sixteen), her beautiful forehead encircled by a funereal wreath. A wax taper had been placed in one of her hands, in the other she held a small coin. At the head of the coffin burned two handsome wax candles stuck into a jar containing gingerbreads; at the foot of the coffin, in a gaudily-painted, high-backed chair, staring blankly at the girl's face, sat Sange Moarte.
The pious superstition of the priest and the magistrate would not let them cross the threshold; but Clement stepped up to the lad, and immediately recognized in him the man on the rock who would not tell him the way.
"Hi, young man! So you are he who has the bad habit of never replying to people when they address you, eh?"
The person thus addressed justified the question by not answering it.
"Now hearken and answer my question. I am the Patrol-officer. D'ye hear?"
Sange Moarte remained speechless, with his eyes fixed all the time on Floriza. He was as motionless as the corpse itself, and scarcely seemed to breathe. His good old mother tenderly took him by the hand and called him by his proper name.
"Jova, my son! answer the gentleman. Look at me, I am your mother."
"In the name of my master, the Prince, I command you to answer me!" cried the Patrol-officer, raising his voice.
The Wallach still remained silent.