Thus, this
time, the cortege did stretch far away behind the hearse, draped with
white and blooming with white roses in the bright sunshine. The whole
family was present; the mother and the sisters had declared that they
would only quit their loved one when she had been lowered into her last
resting-place. And after the family came the friends, the Beauchenes, the
Seguins, and others. But Mathieu and Marianne, worn out, overcome by
suffering, no longer recognized people amid their tears. They only
remembered on the morrow that they must have seen Morange, if indeed it
were really Morange--that silent, unobtrusive, almost shadowy gentleman,
who had wept while pressing their hands. And in like fashion Mathieu
fancied that, in some horrible dream, he had seen Constance's spare
figure and bony profile drawing near to him in the cemetery after the
coffin had been lowered into the grave, and addressing vague words of
consolation to him, though he fancied that her eyes flashed the while as
if with abominable exultation.
What was it that she had said? He no longer knew. Of course her words
must have been appropriate, even as her demeanor was that of a mourning
relative.
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