weak as a woman, weary
and limp, his strength undermined by his dissolute life, the slow
disorganization of his faculties. He had sobbed like a child before his
dead son, all his vanity crushed, all his calculations destroyed. The
thunderbolt had sped by, and nothing remained. In a minute his life had
been swept away; the world was now all black and void. And he remained
livid, in consternation at it all, his bloated face swollen with grief,
his heavy eyelids red with tears.

When he perceived the Froments, weakness again came upon him, and he
staggered towards them with open arms, once more stifling with sobs.

"Ah! my dear friends, what a terrible blow! And I wasn't here! When I
got here he had lost consciousness; he did not recognize me--. Is it
possible? A lad who was in such good health! I cannot believe it. It
seems to me that I must be dreaming, and that he will get up presently
and come down with me into the workshops!"

They kissed him, they pitied him, struck down like this upon his return
from some carouse or other, still intoxicated, perhaps, and tumbling
into the midst of such an awful disaster, his prostration increased by
the stupor following upon debauchery. His beard, moist with his tears,
still stank of tobacco and musk.

Although he scarcely knew the Angelins, he pressed them also in his
arms. "Ah! my poor friends, what a terrible blow! What a terrible blow!"

Then Blaise in his turn came to kiss his parents. In spite of his grief,
and the horrible night he had spent, his face retained its youthful
freshness. Yet tears coursed down his cheeks, for, working with Maurice
day by day, he had conceived real friendship for him.

The silence fell again. Morange, as if unconscious of what went on
around him, as if he were quite alone there, continued walking softly
hither and thither like a somnambulist. Beauchene, with haggard mien,
went off, and then came back carrying some little address-books. He
turned about for another moment, and finally sat down at a writing-table
which had been brought out of Maurice's room. Little accustomed as he
was to grief, he instinctively sought to divert his mind, and began
searching in the little address-books for the purpose of drawing up a
list of the persons who must be invited to the funeral. But his eyes
became blurred, and with a gesture he summoned Blaise, who, after going
into the bedchamber to glance at his wife's sketch, was now returning
to the drawing-room.