Batiste, alone under the vine-arbour, still in his attitude of an impressive Arab, bit his cigar and followed the course of the procession which began to wind along the highway, the coffin and its catafalque looking like an enormous white dove among the black robes and green branches which marked the cortège.
Auspiciously did the poor "Bishop" set out upon his way to the heaven of the innocents. The plain, stretching out voluptuously under the kiss of the springtime sun, enveloped the dead child with its fragrance, accompanied him to the tomb, and covered him with an imperceptible shroud of perfumes. The old trees, which had germinated, filled with the sap of new life, seemed to greet the little corpse as they moved in the breeze, their branches heavy-laden with flowers. Never had Death passed over the earth so beautiful a mask.
Dishevelled and screaming like madwomen, waving their arms furiously, the two unhappy women appeared in the door of the farm-house, their voices prolonged like an interminable moan in the quiet atmosphere of the plain, pervaded with soft light.
"My son!... My soul!..." moaned poor Teresa and her daughter.
Nnnnn! nnnnn! howled the dog, stretching out his muzzle in a long groan, which set the nerves on edge and seemed to send a funereal shiver over all the plain.
"Good-bye, Pascualet!... Good-bye!" cried the little ones, swallowing their tears.
And from afar, among the foliage, borne over the green waves of the fields, replied the echoes of the valley, accompanying the poor "Bishop" to eternity, as he swayed back and forth in his white barge trimmed with gold. The complicated scales of the cornet, with its diabolic capers, seemed like a happy outburst of laughter from Death, who with the child in her arms, departed amid the sunset resplendencies of the plain.
At evening-fall, the procession returned home.
The little ones, sleepy from the excitement of the preceding night, when Death had visited them, slept in their chairs. Teresa and her daughter, overcome by weeping, their energy exhausted after so many sleepless nights, were prostrated. They fell on the bed which still showed signs of the poor child's body, while Batistet snored in the stable near the sick horse.
The father, still silent and impassive, received visitors, shook hands, and gave thanks with movements of the head to the offers and consolatory expressions.