Such of those present as were strangers I found intolerable.  In fact, the phrases of condolence with which they addressed Papa (such, for instance, as that “she is better off now” “she was too good for this world,” and so on) awakened in me something like fury.  What right had they to weep over or to talk about her?  Some of them, in referring to ourselves, called us “orphans”—­just as though it were not a matter of common knowledge that children who have lost their mother are known as orphans!  Probably (I thought) they liked to be the first to give us that name, just as some people find pleasure in being the first to address a newly-married girl as “Madame.”

In a far corner of the room, and almost hidden by the open door, of the dining-room, stood a grey old woman with bent knees.  With hands clasped together and eyes lifted to heaven, she prayed only—­not wept.  Her soul was in the presence of God, and she was asking Him soon to reunite her to her whom she had loved beyond all beings on this earth, and whom she steadfastly believed that she would very soon meet again.

“There stands one who sincerely loved her,” I thought to myself, and felt ashamed.

The requiem was over.  They uncovered the face of the deceased, and all present except ourselves went to the coffin to give her the kiss of farewell.

One of the last to take leave of her departed mistress was a peasant woman who was holding by the hand a pretty little girl of five whom she had brought with her, God knows for what reason.  Just at a moment when I chanced to drop my wet handkerchief and was stooping to pick it up again, a loud, piercing scream startled me, and filled me with such terror that, were I to live a hundred years more, I should never forget it.  Even now the recollection always sends a cold shudder through my frame.  I raised my head.  Standing on the chair near the coffin was the peasant woman, while struggling and fighting in her arms was the little girl, and it was this same poor child who had screamed with such dreadful, desperate frenzy as, straining her terrified face away, she still, continued to gaze with dilated eyes at the face of the corpse.  I too screamed in a voice perhaps more dreadful still, and ran headlong from the room.

Only now did I understand the source of the strong, oppressive smell which, mingling with the scent of the incense, filled the chamber, while the thought that the face which, but a few days ago, had been full of freshness and beauty—­the face which I loved more than anything else in all the world—­was now capable of inspiring horror at length revealed to me, as though for the first time, the terrible truth, and filled my soul with despair.

XXVIII —­ SAD RECOLLECTIONS

Mamma was no longer with us, but our life went on as usual.  We went to bed and got up at the same times and in the same rooms; breakfast, luncheon, and supper continued to be at their usual hours; everything remained standing in its accustomed place; nothing in the house or in our mode of life was altered:  only, she was not there.