It was with an almost triumphal severity that he repeated monotonously, with his slight stammer and a faintly sepulchral resonance: ‘Hannibal de Bréauté, dead! Antoine de Mouchy, dead! Charles Swann, dead! Adalbert de Montmorency, dead! Boson de Talleyrand, dead! Sosthène de Doudeauville, dead!’ and, every time, the word ‘dead’ seemed to fall on the deceased man like a spadeful of earth, each one heavier than the last, thrown down by a gravedigger trying to pin them more securely in their graves.
