The woman had died without pain, quietly, as a woman should whose life
had been blameless. Now she was resting in her bed, lying on her back,
her eyes closed, her features calm, her long white hair carefully
arranged as though she had done it up ten minutes before dying. The
whole pale countenance of the dead woman was so collected, so calm, so
resigned that one could feel what a sweet soul had lived in that body,
what a quiet existence this old soul had led, how easy and pure the
death of this parent had been.
Kneeling beside the bed, her son, a magistrate with inflexible
principles, and her daughter, Marguerite, known as Sister Eulalie, were
weeping as though their hearts would break. She had, from childhood up,
armed them with a strict moral code, teaching them religion, without
weakness, and duty, without compromise. He, the man, had become a
judge and handled the law as a weapon with which he smote the weak ones
without pity. She, the girl, influenced by the virtue which had bathed
her in this austere family, had become the bride of the Church through
her loathing for man.
They had hardly known their father, knowing only that he had made their
mother most unhappy, without being told any other details.
The nun was wildly-kissing the dead woman's hand, an ivory hand as white
as the large crucifix lying across the bed. On the other side of the
long body the other hand seemed still to be holding the sheet in the
death grasp; and the sheet had preserved the little creases as a memory
of those last movements which precede eternal immobility.
A few light taps on the door caused the two sobbing heads to look up,
and the priest, who had just come from dinner, returned. He was red and
out of breath from his interrupted digestion, for he had made himself
a strong mixture of coffee and brandy in order to combat the fatigue of
the last few nights and of the wake which was beginning.
He looked sad, with that assumed sadness of the priest for whom death is
a bread winner. He crossed himself and approaching with his professional
gesture: “Well, my poor children! I have come to help you pass these
last sad hours.” But Sister Eulalie suddenly arose. “Thank you, father,
but my brother and I prefer to remain alone with her. This is our last
chance to see her, and we wish to be together, all three of us, as
we--we--used to be when we were small and our poor mo--mother----”
Grief and tears stopped her; she could not continue.
Once more serene, the priest bowed, thinking of his bed. “As you wish,
my children.” He kneeled, crossed himself, prayed, arose and went out
quietly, murmuring: “She was a saint!”
They remained alone, the dead woman and her children. The ticking of the
clock, hidden in the shadow, could be heard distinctly, and through the
open window drifted in the sweet smell of hay and of woods, together
with the soft moonlight. No other noise could be heard over the land
except the occasional croaking of the frog or the chirping of some
belated insect. An infinite peace, a divine melancholy, a silent
serenity surrounded this dead woman, seemed to be breathed out from her
and to appease nature itself.
Then the judge, still kneeling, his head buried in the bed clothes,
cried in a voice altered by grief and deadened by the sheets and
blankets: “Mamma, mamma, mamma!” And his sister, frantically striking
her forehead against the woodwork, convulsed, twitching and trembling as
in an epileptic fit, moaned: “Jesus, Jesus, mamma, Jesus!” And both of
them, shaken by a storm of grief, gasped and choked.
The crisis slowly calmed down and they began to weep quietly, just as on
the sea when a calm follows a squall.
A rather long time passed and they arose and looked at their dead.
And the memories, those distant memories, yesterday so dear, to-day so
torturing, came to their minds with all the little forgotten details,
those little intimate familiar details which bring back to life the one
who has left. They recalled to each other circumstances, words, smiles,
intonations of the mother who was no longer to speak to them. They saw
her again happy and calm. They remembered things which she had said,
and a little motion of the hand, like beating time, which she often used
when emphasizing something important.
And they loved her as they never had loved her before. They measured
the depth of their grief, and thus they discovered how lonely they would
find themselves.
It was their prop, their guide, their whole youth, all the best part of
their lives which was disappearing. It was their bond with life, their
mother, their mamma, the connecting link with their forefathers which
they would thenceforth miss. They now became solitary, lonely beings;
they could no longer look back.
The nun said to her brother: “You remember how mamma used always to read
her old letters; they are all there in that drawer. Let us, in turn,
read them; let us live her whole life through tonight beside her! It
would be like a road to the cross, like making the acquaintance of her
mother, of our grandparents, whom we never knew, but whose letters are
there and of whom she so often spoke, do you remember?”
Out of the drawer they took about ten little packages of yellow paper,
tied with care and arranged one beside the other. They threw these
relics on the bed and chose one of them on which the word “Father” was
written. They opened and read it.
It was one of those old-fashioned letters which one finds in old family
desk drawers, those epistles which smell of another century. The first
one started: “My dear,” another one: “My beautiful little girl,” others:
“My dear child,” or: “My dear (laughter).” And suddenly the nun began
to read aloud, to read over to the dead woman her whole history, all her
tender memories. The judge, resting his elbow on the bed, was listening
with his eyes fastened on his mother. The motionless body seemed happy.
Sister Eulalie, interrupting herself, said suddenly:
“These ought to be put in the grave with her; they ought to be used as
a shroud and she ought to be buried in it.” She took another package, on
which no name was written. She began to read in a firm voice: “My
adored one, I love you wildly. Since yesterday I have been suffering the
tortures of the damned, haunted by our memory. I feel your lips against
mine, your eyes in mine, your breast against mine. I love you, I love
you! You have driven me mad. My arms open, I gasp, moved by a wild
desire to hold you again. My whole soul and body cries out for you,
wants you. I have kept in my mouth the taste of your kisses--”
The judge had straightened himself up. The nun stopped reading. He
snatched the letter from her and looked for the signature. There was
none, but only under the words, “The man who adores you,” the name
“Henry.” Their father's name was Rene. Therefore this was not from him.
The son then quickly rummaged through the package of letters, took one
out and read: “I can no longer live without your caresses.” Standing
erect, severe as when sitting on the bench, he looked unmoved at the
dead woman. The nun, straight as a statue, tears trembling in the
corners of her eyes, was watching her brother, waiting. Then he crossed
the room slowly, went to the window and stood there, gazing out into the
dark night.
When he turned around again Sister Eulalie, her eyes dry now, was still
standing near the bed, her head bent down.
He stepped forward, quickly picked up the letters and threw them
pell-mell back into the drawer. Then he closed the curtains of the bed.
When daylight made the candles on the table turn pale the son slowly
left his armchair, and without looking again at the mother upon whom
he had passed sentence, severing the tie that united her to son and
daughter, he said slowly: “Let us now retire, sister.”