“Go and get that wooden box in the passage; it is hardly worth anything, and we may just as well put it here.”

And when he had brought it upstairs, the change began.  One by one, she took out all the collars, cuffs, chemises, caps, all the well-worn things that had belonged to the poor woman lying there behind them, and arranged them methodically in the wooden box, in such a manner as to deceive Madame Braux, the deceased woman’s other child, who would be coming the next day.

When they had finished, they first of all carried the drawers downstairs, and the remaining portion afterwards, each of them holding an end, and it was some time before they could make up their minds where it would stand best; but at last they settled upon their own room, opposite the bed, between the two windows, and as soon as it was in its place, Madame Caravan filled it with her own things.  The clock was placed on the chimney-piece in the dining-room, and they looked to see what the effect was, and they were both delighted with it, and agreed that nothing could be better.  Then they got into bed, she blew out the candle, and soon everybody in the house was asleep.

It was broad daylight when Caravan opened his eyes again.  His mind was rather confused when he woke up, and he did not clearly remember what had happened, for a few minutes; when he did, he felt it painfully, and jumped out of bed, almost ready to cry again.

He very soon went to the room overhead, where Rosalie was still sleeping in the same position as the night before, for she did not wake up once during the whole time.  He sent her to do her work, put fresh tapers in the place of those that had burnt out, and then he looked at his mother, revolving in his brain those apparently profound thoughts, those religious and philosophical commonplaces, which trouble people of mediocre 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.”