I consoled Alice. I wept with her. I said “thou” to her for the first
time.
March 15.--For two nights I have not slept. I could not sleep last
night.
Edgar Quinet came to see me last evening. On viewing Charles’s coffin in
the parlor, he said:
“I bid thee adieu, great mind, great talent, great soul, beautiful of
face, more beautiful of thought, son of Victor Hugo!”
We talked together of this great mind that is no more. We were calm. The
night watcher wept as he listened to us.
The Prefect of the Gironde called. I could not receive him.
This morning at 10 o’clock I went to No. 13, Rue Saint Maur. The hearse
was there. MM. Bouvier and Mourot awaited me. I entered the salon. I
kissed the coffin. Then he was taken away. There was one carriage. These
gentlemen and I entered it. Arrived at the cemetery the coffin was taken
from the hearse. Six men carried it. MM. Alexis Bouvier, Mourot and I
followed, bareheaded. It was raining in torrents. We walked behind the
coffin.
At the end of a long alley of plane trees we found the depository, a
vault lighted only by the door. You descend five or six steps to it.
Several coffins were waiting there, as Charles’s will wait. The bearers
entered with the coffin. As I was about to follow, the keeper of the
depository said to me: “No one is allowed to go in.” I understood, and I
respected this solitude of the dead. MM. Alexis Bouvier and Mourot took
me back to No. 13, Rue Saint Maur.
Alice was in a swoon. I gave her some vinegar to smell and beat her
hands. She came to, and said: “Charles, where art thou?”