"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, rising, like the water in a spring, from the depths of
the soul to the lips, a name 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, and
absorbed in everything which came from her, that I no longer cared
whether it was day or night, or whether I was dead or alive, on this
old earth of ours.
"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.
"I was alone, perfectly alone. So I crouched in a green tree and hid
myself there completely amid the thick and somber branches. 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. I wandered
about for a long time, but could not find her tomb 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 groped about like a blind man finding 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 was 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 heard 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, cold with fright, ready to shout out, ready to
die.
"Suddenly, it seemed to me that 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.
Then the dead person appeared, a naked skeleton, 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, and with the
hollows of his eyes he looked at the places where they had been
engraved. Then with the tip of the bone that had been his forefinger,
he wrote in luminous letters, like those lines which boys trace 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. 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, substituting the
truth instead. And I saw that all had been the 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.
They were all writing at the same time, on the threshold of their
eternal abode, the truth, the terrible and the holy truth of which
everybody was ignorant, or pretended to be ignorant, while they were
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 toward 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.'