what is
the matter with you?" But nobody noticed his disconsolate face, so he
rested his two elbows on the counter, and, burying his face in his hands,
he murmured: "Good heavens! Good heavens!"

The landlord looked at him and said: "Are you ill, Monsieur Caravan?"

"No, my friend," he replied, "but my mother has just died."

"Ah!" the other exclaimed, and as a customer at the other end of the
establishment asked for a glass of Bavarian beer, he went to attend to
him, left Caravan almost stupefied at his want of sympathy.

The three domino players were sitting at the same table which they had
occupied before dinner, totally absorbed in their game, and Caravan went
up to them, in search of pity, but as none of them appeared to notice
him, he made up his mind to speak.

"A great misfortune has happened to me since I was here," he said.

All three slightly raised their heads at the same instant, but keeping
their eyes fixed on the pieces which they held in their hands.

"What do you say?"

"My mother has just died;" whereupon one of them said:

"Oh! the devil," with that false air of sorrow which indifferent people
assume. Another, who could not find anything to say, emitted a sort of
sympathetic whistle, shaking his head at the same time, and the third
turned to the game again, as if he were saying to himself: "Is that all!"

Caravan had expected some of those expressions that are said to "come
from the heart," and when he saw how his news was received, he left the
table, indignant at their calmness before their friend's sorrow, although
at that moment he was so dazed with grief, that he hardly felt it, and
went home. When he got in, his wife was waiting for him in her nightgown,
and sitting in a low chair by the open window, still thinking of the
inheritance.

"Undress yourself," she said; "we will talk when we are in bed."

He raised his head, and looking at the ceiling, he said:

"But ... there is nobody up there."

"I beg your pardon, Rosalie is with her, and you can go and take her
place at three o'clock in the morning, when you have had some sleep."

He only partially undressed, however, so as to be ready for anything that
might happen, and after tying a silk handkerchief round his head, he
joined his wife, who had just got in between the sheets, and for some
time they remained side by side, and neither of them spoke. She was
thinking.

Even in bed, her night-cap was adorned with a red bow, and wa