nd while talking, take up those things, and go out.

Oh, no. M. le Duc was not going out. Jansoulet had but to approach
the half-open door of the bed-chamber to see on the bed, raised three
steps--always the platform even after death--a rigid, haughty form, a
motionless and aged profile, metamorphosed by the beard's growth of a
night, quite gray; near the sloping pillow, kneeling and burying her
head in the white drapery, was a woman, whose fair hair lay in rippled
disorder, ready to fall beneath the shears of eternal widowhood; then a
priest and a nun, gathered in this atmosphere of watch by the dead, in
which are mingled the fatigue of sleepless nights and the murmurs of
prayer.

The chamber in which so many ambitions had strengthened their wings, so
many hopes and disappointments had throbbed, was wholly given over
now to the peace of passing Death. Not a sound, not a sigh. Only,
notwithstanding the early hour, away yonder, towards the Pont de la
Concorde, a little clarinet, shrill and sharp, could be heard above
the rumbling of the first vehicles; but its exasperating mockery was
henceforth lost on him who lay there asleep, showing to the terrified
Nabob an image of his own destiny, chilled, discoloured, ready for the
tomb.

Others besides Jansoulet found that death-chamber lugubrious: the
windows wide open, the night and the wind entering freely from the
garden, making a strong draught; a human form on a table; the body,
which had just been embalmed; the hollow skull filled with a sponge,
the brain in a basin. The weight of this brain of a statesman was truly
extraordinary. It weighed--it weighed--the newspapers of the period
mentioned the figure. But who remembers it to-day?

THE FUNERAL

"Don't weep, my fairy, you rob me of all my courage. Come, you will be a
great deal happier when you no longer have your terrible demon. You will
go back to Fontainebleau and look after your chickens. The ten thousand
francs from Brahim will help to get you settled down. And then, don't be
afraid, once you are over there I shall send you money. Since this Bey
wants to have sculpture done by me, he will have to pay for it, as you
may imagine. I shall return rich, rich. Who knows? Perhaps a sultana."

"Yes, you will be a sultana, but I--I shall be dead and I shall never
see you again." And the good Crenmitz in despair huddled herself into a
corner of the cab so that she would not be seen weeping.

Felicia was leaving