The chamber in which so many ambitions had strengthened their wings, so many hopes and disappointments had throbbed, was wholly given over now to the peace of passing Death. Not a sound, not a sigh. Only, notwithstanding the early hour, away yonder, towards the Pont de la Concorde, a little clarinet, shrill and sharp, could be heard above the rumbling of the first vehicles; but its exasperating mockery was henceforth lost on him who lay there asleep, showing to the terrified Nabob an image of his own destiny, chilled, discoloured, ready for the tomb. Others besides Jansoulet found that death-chamber lugubrious: the windows wide open, the night and the wind entering freely from the garden, making a strong draught; a human form on a table; the body, which had just been embalmed; the hollow skull filled with a sponge, the brain in a basin. The weight of this brain of a statesman was truly extraordinary. It weighed--it weighed--the newspapers of the period mentioned the figure. But who remembers it to-day? THE FUNERAL “Don’t weep, my fairy, you rob me of all my courage. Come, you will be a great deal happier when you no longer have your terrible demon. You will go back to Fontainebleau and look after your chickens. The ten thousand francs from Brahim will help to get you settled down. And then, don’t be afraid, once you are over there I shall send you money. Since this Bey wants to have sculpture done by me, he will have to pay for it, as you may imagine. I shall return rich, rich. Who knows? Perhaps a sultana.” “Yes, you will be a sultana, but I--I shall be dead and I shall never see you again.” And the good Crenmitz in despair huddled herself into a corner of the cab so that she would not be seen weeping. Felicia was leaving Paris. She was trying to escape the horrible sadness, the sinister disgust into which Mora’s death had thrown her. What a terrible blow for the proud girl! _Ennui_, pique, had thrown her into this man’s arms; she had given him pride--modesty--all; and now he had carried all away with him, leaving her tarnished for life, a tearless widow, without mourning and without dignity. Two or three visits to Saint-James Villa, a few evenings in the back of some box at some small theatre, behind the curtain that shelters forbidden and shameful pleasure, these were the only memories left to her by this liaison of a fortnight, this loveless intrigue wherein her pride had not found even the satisfaction of the commotion caused by a big scandal. The useless and indelible stain, the stupid fall of a woman who does not know how to walk and who is embarrassed in her rising by the ironical pity of the passers-by.