"My friend," said Genestas, "I have seen thousands of men die on the
battlefield; death did not wait to let their children bid them farewell;
take comfort, you are not the only one."

"But a father who was such a good man!" he replied, bursting into fresh
tears.

Benassis took Genestas in the direction of the farm buildings.

"The funeral oration will only cease when the body has been laid in its
coffin," said the doctor, "and the weeping woman's language will grow
more vivid and impassioned all the while. But a woman only acquires
the right to speak in such a strain before so imposing an audience by a
blameless life. If the widow could reproach herself with the smallest
of shortcomings, she would not dare to utter a word; for if she did, she
would pronounce her own condemnation, she would be at the same time her
own accuser and judge. Is there not something sublime in this custom
which thus judges the living and the dead? They only begin to wear
mourning after a week has elapsed, when it is publicly worn at a meeting
of all the family. Their near relations spend the week with the widow
and children, to help them to set their affairs in order and to console
them. A family gathering at such a time produces a great effect on the
minds of the mourners; the consideration for others which possesses men
when they are brought into close contact acts as a restraint on violent
grief. On the last day, when the mourning garb has been assumed, a
solemn banquet is given, and their relations take leave of them. All
this is taken very seriously. Any one who was slack in fulfilling his
duties after the death of the head of a family would have no one at his
own funeral."

The doctor had reached the cowhouse as he spoke; he opened the door and
made the commandant enter, that he might show it to him.

"All our cowhouses have been rebuilt after this pattern, captain. Look!
Is it not magnificent?"

Genestas could not help admiring the huge place. The cows and oxen stood
in two rows, with their tails towards the side walls, and their heads
in the middle of the shed. Access to the stalls was afforded by a fairly
wide space between them and the wall; you could see their horned heads
and shining eyes through the lattice work, so that it was easy for the
master to run his eyes over the cattle. The fodder was placed on some
staging erected above the stalls, so that it fell into the racks below
without waste of labor or material. There w