"I had loved her madly! Why does one love? Why does one love? How queer
it is to see only one being in the world, to have only one thought in
one's mind, only one desire in the heart, and only one name on the lips;
a name which comes up continually, which rises like the water in a
spring, from the depths of the soul, which rises to the lips, and which
one repeats over and over again which one whispers ceaselessly,
everywhere, like a prayer.
"I am going to tell you our story, for love only has one, which is
always the same. I met her and loved her; that is all. And for a whole
year I have lived on her tenderness, on her caresses, in her arms, in
her dresses, on her words, so completely wrapped up, bound, imprisoned
in everything which came from her, that I no longer knew whether it was
day or night, if I was dead or alive, on this old earth of ours, or
elsewhere.
"And then she died. How? I do not know. I no longer know; 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 know 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 I walked
through the streets, and went home, and the next day I 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 was very near opening the window and throwing myself out into the
street. As I could not remain any longer among these things, between
these walls which had enclosed and sheltered her, and 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 be able to look at herself every day from
head to foot as she went out, to see if her toilet looked well, and was
correct and pretty, from her little boots to her bonnet.
"And I stopped short in front of that looking-glass in which she had so
often been reflected. So often, so often, that it also 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 had, 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, which makes us suffer such torments! Happy are the men
whose hearts forget everything that it has contained, everything that
has passed before it, everything that has looked at itself in it, that
has been reflected in its affection, in its love! How I suffer!
"I went on without knowing it, without wishing it; I went towards 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, a 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 the 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
afield, scarcely anything! The earth takes them back, oblivion effaces
them. Adieu!
"At the end of the abandoned cemetery, I suddenly perceived that the one
where those who have been dead a long time finish mingling with the
soil, where the crosses themselves decay, where the last comers 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.
"I was alone, perfectly alone, and so I crouched in a green tree, and
hid myself there completely among the thick and somber branches, and I
waited, clinging to the stem, like a shipwrecked man does to a plank.
"When it was quite dark, I left my refuge and began to walk softly,
slowly, inaudibly, through that ground full of dead people, and I
wandered about for a long time, but could not find her again. I went on
with extended arms, knocking against the tombs with my hands, my feet,
my knees, my chest, even with my head, without being able to find her. I
touched and felt about like a blind man groping his way, I felt the
stones, the crosses, the iron railings, the metal wreaths, and the
wreaths of faded flowers! I read the names with my fingers, by passing
them over the letters. What a night! What a night! I could not find her
again!
"There was no moon. What a night! I am frightened, horribly frightened
in these narrow paths, between two rows of graves. Graves! graves!
graves! nothing but graves! On my right, on my left, in front of me,
around me, everywhere there were graves! I sat down on one of them, for
I could not walk any longer, my knees were so weak. I could hear my
heart beat! And I could hear something else as well. What? A confused,
nameless noise. Was the noise in my head in the impenetrable night, or
beneath the mysterious earth, the earth sown with human corpses? I
looked all around me, but I cannot say how long I remained there; I was
paralyzed with terror, drunk with fright, ready to shout out, ready to
die.
"Suddenly, it seemed to me as if the slab of marble on which I was
sitting, was moving. Certainly, it was moving, as if it were being
raised. With a bound, I sprang on to the neighboring tomb, and I saw,
yes, I distinctly saw the stone which I had just quitted, rise upright,
and the dead person appeared, a naked skeleton, which was pushing the
stone back with its bent back. I saw it quite clearly, although the
night was so dark. On the cross I could read:
"'_Here lies Jacques Olivant, who died at the age of fifty-one. He loved
his family, was kind and honorable, and died in the grace of the Lord._'
"The dead man also read what was inscribed on his tombstone; then he
picked up a stone off the path, a little, pointed stone, and began to
scrape the letters carefully. He slowly effaced them altogether, and
with the hollows of his eyes he looked at the places where they had been
engraved, and, with the tip of the bone, that had been his forefinger,
he wrote in luminous letters, like those lines which one traces on walls
with the tip of a lucifer match:
"'_Here reposes Jacques Olivant, who died at the age of fifty-one. He
hastened his father's death by his unkindness, as he wished to inherit
his fortune, he tortured his wife, tormented his children, deceived his
neighbors, robbed everyone he could, and died wretched._'
"When he had finished writing, the dead man stood motionless, looking at
his work, and on turning round I saw that all the graves were open, that
all the dead bodies had emerged from them, and that all had effaced the
lies inscribed on the gravestones by their relations, and had
substituted the truth instead. And I saw that all had been tormentors of
their neighbors--malicious, dishonest, hypocrites, liars, rogues,
calumniators, envious; that they had stolen, deceived, performed every
disgraceful, every abominable action, these good fathers, these faithful
wives, these devoted sons, these chaste daughters, these honest
tradesmen, these men and women who were called irreproachable, and they
were called irreproachable, and they were all writing at the same time,
on the threshold of their eternal abode, the truth, the terrible and the
holy truth which everybody is ignorant of, or pretends to be ignorant
of, while the others are alive.
"I thought that _she_ also must have written something on her tombstone,
and now, running without any fear among the half-open coffins, among the
corpses and skeletons, I went towards her, sure that I should find her
immediately. I recognized her at once, without seeing her face, which
was covered by the winding-sheet, and on the marble cross, where shortly
before I had read: '_She loved, was loved, and died_,' I now saw:
'_Having gone out one day, in order to deceive her lover, she caught
cold in the rain and died._'"
* * * * *
"It appears that they found me at daybreak, lying on the grave
unconscious."