ediocre minds, in the face of death.

But he went down stairs as soon as his wife called him. She had written
out a list of what had to be done during the morning, which rather
frightened him when he saw that he would have to do all this:

1. Give information of the death to the Mayor's officer.
2. See the doctor who had attended her.
3. Order the coffin.
4. Give notice at the church.
5. Go to the undertaker.
6. Order the notices of her death at the printer's.
7. Go to the lawyer.
8. Telegraph the news to all the family.

Besides all this there were a number of small commissions; so he took his
hat and went out, and as the news had got abroad, Madame Caravan's female
friends and neighbors soon began to come in, and begged to be allowed to
see the body. There had been a scene at the hairdresser's, on the ground
floor, about the matter, between husband and wife, while he was shaving a
customer; for while she was knitting the woman had said: "Well, there is
one less, and as great a miser as one ever meets with. I certainly was
not very fond of her; but, nevertheless, I must go and have a look at
her."

The husband, while lathering his _patient's_ chin, said: "That is another
queer fancy! Nobody but a woman would think of such a thing. It is not
enough for them to worry you during life, but they cannot even leave you
at peace when you are dead." But his wife, without disconcerting herself
the least, replied: "The feeling is stronger than I, and I must go. It
has been on me since the morning. If I was not to see her, I should think
about it all my life, but when I have had a good look at her, I shall be
satisfied."

The knight of the razor shrugged his shoulders, and remarked in a low
voice to the gentleman whose cheek he was scraping: "I just ask you, what
sort of ideas do you think these confounded females have? I should not
amuse myself by going to see a corpse!" But his wife had heard him, and
replied very quietly: "But it is so, it is so." And then, putting her
knitting on the counter, she went upstairs, to the first floor, where she
met two other neighbors, who had just come, and who were discussing the
event with Madame Caravan, who was giving them the details, and they all
went together to the mortuary chamber. The four women went in softly,
and, one after the other, sprinkled the bed clothes with the holy water,
knelt down, made the sign of the cross while they mumbled a prayer, then
they got