'"
Eugene took part of his friend's advice, but only after he had gone in
person first to M. and Mme. de Nucingen, and then to M. and Mme. de
Restaud--a fruitless errand. He went no further than the doorstep in
either house. The servants had received strict orders to admit no one.
"Monsieur and Madame can see no visitors. They have just lost their
father, and are in deep grief over their loss."
Eugene's Parisian experience told him that it was idle to press the
point. Something clutched strangely at his heart when he saw that it
was impossible to reach Delphine.
"Sell some of your ornaments," he wrote hastily in the porter's room,
"so that your father may be decently laid in his last resting-place."
He sealed the note, and begged the porter to give it to Therese for
her mistress; but the man took it to the Baron de Nucingen, who flung
the note into the fire. Eugene, having finished his errands, returned
to the lodging-house about three o'clock. In spite of himself, the
tears came into his eyes. The coffin, in its scanty covering of black
cloth, was standing there on the pavement before the gate, on two
chairs. A withered sprig of hyssop was soaking in the holy water bowl
of silver-plated copper; there was not a soul in the street, not a
passer-by had stopped to sprinkle the coffin; there was not even an
attempt at a black drapery over the wicket.
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