His beard, moist with his tears, still
stank of tobacco and musk.
Although he scarcely knew the Angelins, he pressed them also in his arms.
"Ah! my poor friends, what a terrible blow! What a terrible blow!"
Then Blaise in his turn came to kiss his parents. In spite of his grief,
and the horrible night he had spent, his face retained its youthful
freshness. Yet tears coursed down his cheeks, for, working with Maurice
day by day, he had conceived real friendship for him.
The silence fell again. Morange, as if unconscious of what went on around
him, as if he were quite alone there, continued walking softly hither and
thither like a somnambulist. Beauchene, with haggard mien, went off, and
then came back carrying some little address-books. He turned about for
another moment, and finally sat down at a writing-table which had been
brought out of Maurice's room. Little accustomed as he was to grief, he
instinctively sought to divert his mind, and began searching in the
little address-books for the purpose of drawing up a list of the persons
who must be invited to the funeral. But his eyes became blurred, and with
a gesture he summoned Blaise, who, after going into the bedchamber to
glance at his wife's sketch, was now returning to the drawing-room.
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