“Have you perhaps forgotten a poor woman who has forgotten nothing and
who dies because she can not forget?
“When you receive this letter I shall be no more. Then go to the
cemetery of Père-Lachaise, tell the concierge to let you see among the
newest graves one that bears on its stone the simple name ‘Marie,’ and
when you are face to face with that grave, fall on your knees and pray.”
“Ah, well!” continued Anthony, “I received that letter yesterday, and I
went there this morning. The concierge conducted me to the grave, and
I remained two hours on my knees there, praying and weeping. Do you
understand? She was there, that woman. Her flaming spirit had stolen
away; the body consumed by it had bowed, even to breaking, beneath the
burden of jealousy and of remorse; she was there, under my feet, and
she had lived, and she had died, for me unknown; unknown!--and taking
a place in my life as she had taken one in the grave; unknown!--and
burying in my heart a corpse, cold and lifeless, as she had buried one
in the sepulchre--Oh! Do you know anything to equal it? Do you know any
event so appalling? Therefore, now, no more hope. I will see her again
never. I would dig up her grave that I might recover, perhaps, some
traces wherewithal to reconstruct her face; and I love her always! Do
you understand, Alexandre? I love her like a madman; and I would kill
myself this instant in order to rejoin her, if she were not to remain
unknown to me for eternity, as she was unknown to me in this world.”
With these words he snatched the letter from my hands, kissed it over
and over again, and began to weep like a little child.
I took him in my arms, and not knowing what to say to him, I wept with
him.