the next day, while Charles had his back turned to her drawing the
window-curtain, she said, "O God!" gave a sigh and fainted. She was
dead! What a surprise! When all was over at the cemetery Charles went
home. He found no one downstairs; he went up to the first floor to
their room; say her dress still hanging at the foot of the alcove; then,
leaning against the writing-table, he stayed until the evening, buried
in a sorrowful reverie. She had loved him after all!



Chapter Three

One morning old Rouault brought Charles the money for setting his
leg--seventy-five francs in forty-sou pieces, and a turkey. He had heard
of his loss, and consoled him as well as he could.

"I know what it is," said he, clapping him on the shoulder; "I've been
through it. When I lost my dear departed, I went into the fields to be
quite alone. I fell at the foot of a tree; I cried; I called on God; I
talked nonsense to Him. I wanted to be like the moles that I saw on the
branches, their insides swarming with worms, dead, and an end of it.
And when I thought that there were others at that very moment with their
nice little wives holding them in their embrace, I struck great blows on
the earth with my stick. I was pretty well mad with not eating; the very
idea of going to a cafe disgusted me--you wouldn't believe it. Well,
quite softly, one day following another, a spring on a winter, and an
autumn after a summer, this wore away, piece by piece, crumb by crumb;
it passed away, it is gone, I should say it has sunk; for something
always remains at the bottom as one would say--a weight here, at one's
heart. But since it is the lot of all of us, one must not give way