of drums, still distant but drawing
nearer momentarily. But, at the first movement of the wheels, the shouts
and hooting began anew. Thinking that they would allow him to cross the
square, the driver had with great difficulty forced his way to the front
rank of the crowd, which had closed in behind him and refused to allow
him to turn back. It was impossible to advance or retreat She must
remain there, endure those alcoholic breaths, those inquisitive glances,
kindled in anticipation of an exceptionally fine spectacle, and eyeing
with interest the fair traveller who was decamping "with such a pile o'
trunks as that!" and a cur of that size to protect her. La Crenmitz was
horribly frightened; Felicia, for her part, had but one thought, that he
was about to pass, that she would be in the front rank to see him.

Suddenly there was a loud shout: "Here he comes!" then a great silence
fell upon the square, which had shaken off the burden of three weary
hours of waiting.

He was coming!

Felicia's first impulse was to lower the curtain on her side, the side
on which the procession was to pass. But, when she heard the drums
close at hand, seized with a nervous frenzy at her inability to escape
that obsession, or, it may be, infected by the unhealthy curiosity that
encompassed her, she raised the curtain with a jerk, and her pale,
ardent little face appeared, resting on both hands, at the window.

"Very good! you will have it so; I am looking at you."

It was the most magnificent funeral one can imagine, the last honors
paid in all their vain pomp, as sonorous and as hollow as the rhythmic
accompaniment upon asses' skins draped in crape. First, the white
surplices of the clergy indistinctly seen amid the black trappings of
the first five carriages; then, drawn by six black horses, veritable
horses of Erebus, as black, as slow, as sluggish as its flood, came the
funeral car, all bedecked with plumes and fringe, embroidered with
silver, with heavy tears, with heraldic coronets surmounting gigantic
M's, a prophetic initial which seemed to be that of Death (_Mort_)
itself, of the Duchess Death decorated with eight _fleurons_. Such a
mass of canopies and heavy draperies concealed the ignoble framework of
the hearse that it shivered and swayed from top to bottom at every step,
as if oppressed by the majesty of its dead. On the casket lay the sword,
the coat, the embroidered hat, garments of state which had never been
used, resple