minister--

His companion was asleep. Then he felt somewhat stifled by the
over-heavy atmosphere of the room; he opened the window; this awoke the
chemist.

"Come, take a pinch of snuff," he said to him. "Take it; it'll relieve
you."

A continual barking was heard in the distance. "Do you hear that dog
howling?" said the chemist.

"They smell the dead," replied the priest. "It's like bees; they leave
their hives on the decease of any person."

Homais made no remark upon these prejudices, for he had again dropped
asleep. Monsieur Bournisien, stronger than he, went on moving his lips
gently for some time, then insensibly his chin sank down, he let fall
his big black boot, and began to snore.

They sat opposite one another, with protruding stomachs, puffed-up
faces, and frowning looks, after so much disagreement uniting at last in
the same human weakness, and they moved no more than the corpse by their
side, that seemed to be sleeping.

Charles coming in did not wake them. It was the last time; he came to
bid her farewell.

The aromatic herbs were still smoking, and spirals of bluish vapour
blended at the window-sash with the fog that was coming in. There were
few stars, and the night was warm. The wax of the candles fell in great
drops upon the sheets of the bed. Charles watched them burn, tiring his
eyes against the glare of their yellow flame.

The watering on the satin gown shimmered white as moonlight. Emma was
lost beneath it; and it seemed to him that, spreading beyond her own
self, she blended confusedly with everything around her--the silence,
the night, the passing wind, the damp odours rising from the ground.

Then suddenly he saw her in the garden at Tostes, on a bench against the
thorn hedge, or else at Rouen in the streets, on the threshold of their
house, in the yard at Bertaux. He again heard the laughter of the happy
boys beneath the apple-trees: the room was filled with the perfume
of her hair; and her dress rustled in his arms with a noise like
electricity. The dress was still the same.

For a long while he thus recalled all his lost joys, her attitudes,
her movements, the sound of her voice. Upon one fit of despair followed
another, and even others, inexhaustible as the waves of an overflowing
sea.

A terrible curiosity seized him. Slowly, with the tips of his fingers,
palpitating, he lifted her veil. But he uttered a cry of horror that
awoke the other two.

They dragged him down into