"And then she died. How? I do not know; I no longer know
anything. But one evening she came home wet, for it was raining
heavily, and the next day she coughed, and she coughed for about
a week, and took to her bed. What happened I do not remember now,
but doctors came, wrote, and went away. Medicines were brought,
and some women made her drink them. Her hands were hot, her
forehead was burning, and her eyes bright and sad. When I spoke
to her, she answered me, but I do not remember what we said. I
have forgotten everything, everything, everything! She died, and
I very well remember her slight,
feeble sigh. The nurse said:
'Ah!' and I understood, I understood!
"I knew nothing more, nothing. I saw a
priest, who said: 'Your
mistress?' and it seemed to me as if he were insulting her. As
she was dead, nobody had the right to say that any longer, and I
turned him out. Another came who was very kind and tender, and I
shed tears when he spoke to me about her.
"They consulted me about the
funeral, but I do not remember
anything that they said, though I recollected the
coffin, and the
sound of the
hammer when they nailed her down in it. Oh! God,
God!
"She was buried! Buried! She! In that hole! Some people
came--female friends. I made my escape and ran away. I ran, and
then walked through the streets, went home, and the next day
started on a journey.
* * * * * * *
"Yesterday I returned to Paris, and when I saw my room again--our
room, our bed, our furniture, everything that remains of the life
of a human being after death--I was seized by such a violent
attack of fresh grief, that I felt like
opening the window and
throwing myself out into the street. I could not remain any
longer among these things, between these walls which had inclosed
and sheltered her, which retained a thousand atoms of her, of her
skin and of her
breath, in their imperceptible crevices. I took
up my hat to make my escape, and just as I reached the door, I
passed the large glass in the hall, which she had put there so
that she might look at herself every day from head to foot as she
went out, to see if her toilette looked well, and was correct and
pretty, from her little boots to her bonnet.
"I stopped short in front of that looking-glass in which she had
so often been reflected--so often, so often, that it must have
retained her
reflection. I was
standing there. trembling, with my
eyes fixed on the glass--on that flat,
profound, empty
glass--which had contained her entirely, and had possessed her as
much as I, as my
passionate looks had. I felt as if I loved that
glass. I touched it; it was cold. Oh! the recollection! sorrowful
mirror, burning mirror,
horrible mirror, to make men suffer such
torments! Happy is the man whose heart forgets everything that it
has contained, everything that has passed before it, everything
that has looked at itself in it, or has been reflected in its
affection, in its love! How I suffer!
"I went out without
knowing it, without wishing it, and toward
the
cemetery. I found her simple grave, a white
marble cross,
with these few words:
" 'She loved, was loved, and died.'
"She is there, below, decayed! How
horrible! I sobbed with my
forehead on the ground, and I stopped there for a long time, a
long time. Then I saw that it was getting dark, and a strange,
mad wish, the wish of a
despairing lover, seized me. I wished to
pass the night, the last night, in
weeping on her grave. But I
should be seen and
driven out. How was I to manage? I was
cunning, and got up and began to roam about in that city of the
dead. I walked and walked. How small this city is, in comparison
with the other, the city in which we live. And yet, how much more
numerous the dead are than the living. We want high houses, wide
streets, and much room for the four generations who see the
daylight at the same time, drink water from the spring, and wine
from the vines, and eat bread from the plains.
"And for all the generations of the dead, for all that
ladder of
humanity that has descended down to us, there is scarcely
anything, scarcely anything! The earth takes them back, and
oblivion effaces them. Adieu!
"At the end of the
cemetery, I suddenly perceived that I was in
its oldest part, where those who had been dead a long time are
mingling with the soil, where the crosses themselves are decayed,
where possibly newcomers will be put to-morrow. It is full of
untended roses, of strong and dark cypress-trees, a sad and
beautiful garden, nourished on human flesh.