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She fastened her bouquet of drooping roses to her corsage and without daring to look at Lissac again, she re-entered, leaning on Ramel's arm. Left alone in the salon, Guy remained a moment to shake his head. "Poor, dear creature!" he said.
While Warcolier, entirely concerned about himself, with erect head and oratorical gesture, spoke as if in the presence of two thousand hearers, Sulpice Vaudrey again recalled, still sad and sick, the dark and sunken cheeks and the colorless ears, the poor projecting ears of the consumptive Garnier with whom he had come in contact at Ramel's.
I did not know who you were when you know I said In fact, it is kind let us say no more about it I beg your pardon There will be a vast gathering at Denis Ramel's funeral, if there are present only a quarter of those whom he has obliged." Vaudrey was heartbroken the next day. Behind Ramel's coffin, not a person followed.
As he turned round, he saw a man whom he had not at first seen and who had risen. The man was very pale and greeted him with a timid air. Vaudrey recognized Garnier, the man whom he had seen previously at Ramel's, a cough-racked, patient, dying man. The consumptive had nevertheless outlived the old man. "It is good of you to have come, monsieur," said the workman. "He loved you dearly."
Only one thought, a sombre image, clouded his joy: it was not the memory of Collard, but the sad image of the man whom he had met at Ramel's, and who, when the Officiel should speak, should make the announcement, would shrug his shoulders and say ironically: "Well! and what then?" He had scarcely whispered these words to Adrienne: "President of the Council!
On the way he thought of the eternal antitheses of Parisian life: the news of the death of a friend communicated to him at the Opéra while a waltz-tune was being played! And thinking to himself: "From the Opéra to the Opéra! That, moreover, is the history of my ministry and that of the Granet administration, probably!" The portress at Rue Boursault led him to Denis Ramel's apartment.
This exterior boulevard that he rolled along was full of merry pedestrians. One would have thought it was a Sunday afternoon. Old people, sitting on benches, were enjoying the early sun. Sulpice looked at them, his brain busy with Ramel's warnings. He had just called him a pessimist, but inwardly he acknowledged that the old stager, who had remained a philosopher, spoke the truth. Woman!
"Do you think so? Why, a journal that would proclaim the truth to everybody would not last six months, since no one would buy it." As Sulpice was about to go, there was a ring at Ramel's door. "Ah! who can it be? A visit. I beg you will excuse me, my dear Vaudrey." Denis went to open the door.
Ah, Ramel! he was bent on remaining in the background, on being nothing and loving his friends only when they were in defeat, as Jéliotte had said. Well, Vaudrey would take him as his adviser. This devil of a Ramel, this savage fellow should govern the state in spite of himself. The minister did not know Ramel's present lodging which he had occupied only a short time.
He bowed and Vaudrey left in a gloomy mood. It seemed to him that his life was crumbling away, that he was sowing, shred by shred, his flesh on the road. The black hangings of Ramel's coffin and he smiled sadly at this new irony recalled to him the bills of the upholsterers that he still owed for the furnishing of that fête at the ministry on the last day of his power and his happiness.
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