“I was ready, but exclaimed:  ‘I quite forgot to order my carriage.’  ’I have one,’ she said; ‘it is his, which was waiting for him!’ She wrapped herself up, so as to completely conceal her face, and we started.

“When she was by my side in the carriage she suddenly seized my hand, and crushing it in her delicate fingers, she said, with a shaking voice, that proceeded from a distracted heart:  ’Oh! if you only knew, if you only knew what I am suffering!  I loved him, I have loved him distractedly, like a madwoman, for the last six months.’  ‘Is anyone up in your house?’ I asked.  ‘No, nobody except those, who knows everything.’

“We stopped at the door, and evidently everybody was asleep.  We went in without making any noise, by means of her latch-key, and walked upstairs on tiptoe.  The frightened servant was sitting on the top of the stairs with a lighted candle by her side, as she was afraid to remain with the dead man, and I went into the room, which was in great disorder.  Wet towels, with which they had bathed the young man’s temples, were lying on the floor, by the side of a washbasin and a glass, while a strong smell of vinegar pervaded the room.

“The dead man’s body was lying at full length in the middle of the room, and I went up to it, looked at it, and touched it.  I opened the eyes and felt the hands, and then, turning to the two women, who were shaking as if they were freezing, I said to them:  ’Help me to lift him on to the bed.’  When we had laid him gently on it, I listened to his heart and put a looking-glass to his lips, and then said:  ‘It is all over.’  It was a terrible sight!

“I looked at the man, and said:  ‘You ought to arrange his hair a little.’  The girl went and brought her mistress’ comb and brush, but as she was trembling, and pulling out his long, matted hair in doing it, Madame Lelievre took the comb out of her hand, and arranged his hair as if she were caressing him.  She parted it, brushed his beard, rolled his mustaches gently round her fingers, then, suddenly, letting go of his hair, she took the dead man’s inert head in her hands and looked for a long time in despair at the dead face, which no longer could smile at her, and then, throwing herself on him, she clasped him in her arms and kissed him ardently.  Her kisses fell like blows on his closed mouth and eyes, his forehead and temples; and then, putting her lips to his ear, as if he could still hear her, and as if she were about to whisper something to him, she said several times, in a heartrending voice: 

“‘Good-by, my darling!’

“Just then the clock struck twelve, and I started up.  ‘Twelve o’clock!’ I exclaimed.  ’That is the time when the club closes.  Come, madame, we have not a moment to lose!’ She started up, and I said: 

“‘We must carry him into the drawing-room.’  And when we had done this, I placed him on a sofa, and lit the chandeliers, and just then the front door was opened and shut noisily.  ’Rose, bring me the basin and the towels, and make the room look tidy.  Make haste, for Heaven’s sake!  Monsieur Lelievre is coming in.’