He hastened to the room overhead, where Rosalie was still sleeping in the same position as the night before, not having awakened once.  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 intelligence in the presence of death.

But, as his wife was calling him, he went downstairs.  She had written out a list of what had to be done during the morning, and he was horrified when he saw the memorandum: 

1.  Report the death at the mayor’s office. 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.  As the news had spread 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 between husband and wife at the hairdresser’s on the ground floor about the matter, while a customer was being shaved.  The wife, who was knitting steadily, said:  “Well, there is one less, and as great a miser as one ever meets with.  I certainly did not care for 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 being in the least disconcerted, replied:  “The feeling is stronger than I am, and I must go.  It has been on me since the morning.  If I were 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 death chamber.  The four women went in softly, and, one after the other, sprinkled the bed clothes with the salt water, knelt down, made the sign of the cross while they mumbled a prayer.  Then they rose from their knees and looked for some time at the corpse with round, wide-open eyes and mouths partly open, while the daughter-in-law of the dead woman, with her handkerchief to her face, pretended to be sobbing piteously.