The seventeenth of July, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, at
half-past two in the morning, the watchman in the cemetery of Besiers,
who lived in a small cottage on the edge of this field of the dead, was
awakened by the barking of his dog, which was shut up in the kitchen.
Going down quickly, he saw the animal sniffing at the crack of the door
and barking furiously, as if some tramp had been sneaking about the
house. The keeper, Vincent, therefore took his gun and went out.
His dog, preceding him, at once ran in the direction of the Avenue
General Bonnet, stopping short at the monument of Madame Tomoiseau.
The keeper, advancing cautiously, soon saw a faint light on the side of
the Avenue Malenvers, and stealing in among the graves, he came upon a
horrible act of profanation.
A man had dug up the coffin of a young woman who had been buried the
evening before and was dragging the corpse out of it.
A small dark lantern, standing on a pile of earth, lighted up this
hideous scene.
Vincent sprang upon the wretch, threw him to the ground, bound his hands
and took him to the police station.
It was a young, wealthy and respected lawyer in town, named
Courbataille.
He was brought into court. The public prosecutor opened the case by
referring to the monstrous deeds of the Sergeant Bertrand.
A wave of indignation swept over the courtroom. When the magistrate
sat down the crowd assembled cried: “Death! death!” With difficulty the
presiding judge established silence.
Then he said gravely:
“Defendant, what have you to say in your defense?”
Courbataille, who had refused counsel, rose. He was a handsome fellow,
tall, brown, with a frank face, energetic manner and a fearless eye.
Paying no attention to the whistlings in the room, he began to speak in
a voice that was low and veiled at first, but that grew more firm as he
proceeded.
“Monsieur le President, gentlemen of the jury: I have very little to
say. The woman whose grave I violated was my sweetheart. I loved her.
“I loved her, not with a sensual love and not with mere tenderness
of heart and soul, but with an absolute, complete love, with an
overpowering passion.
“Hear me:
“When I met her for the first time I felt a strange sensation. It was
not astonishment nor admiration, nor yet that which is called love at
first sight, but a feeling of delicious well-being, as if I had been
plunged into a warm bath. Her gestures seduced me, her voice enchanted
me, and it was with infinite pleasure that I looked upon her person.
It seemed to me as if I had seen her before and as if I had known her a
long time. She had within her something of my spirit.
“She seemed to me like an answer to a cry uttered by my soul, to that
vague and unceasing cry with which we call upon Hope during our whole
life.
“When I knew her a little better, the mere thought of seeing her again
filled me with exquisite and profound uneasiness; the touch of her hand
in mine was more delightful to me than anything that I had imagined;
her smile filled me with a mad joy, with the desire to run, to dance, to
fling myself upon the ground.
“So we became lovers.
“Yes, more than that: she was my very life. I looked for nothing further
on earth, and had no further desires. I longed for nothing further.
“One evening, when we had gone on a somewhat long walk by the river,
we were overtaken by the rain, and she caught cold. It developed into
pneumonia the next day, and a week later she was dead.
“During the hours of her suffering astonishment and consternation
prevented my understanding and reflecting upon it, but when she was dead
I was so overwhelmed by blank despair that I had no thoughts left. I
wept.
“During all the horrible details of the interment my keen and wild grief
was like a madness, a kind of sensual, physical grief.
“Then when she was gone, when she was under the earth, my mind at once
found itself again, and I passed through a series of moral sufferings
so terrible that even the love she had vouchsafed to me was dear at that
price.
“Then the fixed idea came to me: I shall not see her again.
“When one dwells on this thought for a whole day one feels as if he were
going mad. Just think of it! There is a woman whom you adore, a unique
woman, for in the whole universe there is not a second one like her.
This woman has given herself to you and has created with you the
mysterious union that is called Love. Her eye seems to you more vast
than space, more charming than the world, that clear eye smiling with
her tenderness. This woman loves you. When she speaks to you her voice
floods you with joy.
“And suddenly she disappears! Think of it! She disappears, not only for
you, but forever. She is dead. Do you understand what that means? Never,
never, never, not anywhere will she exist any more. Nevermore will that
eye look upon anything again; nevermore will that voice, nor any voice
like it, utter a word in the same way as she uttered it.
“Nevermore will a face be born that is like hers. Never, never! The
molds of statues are kept; casts are kept by which one can make objects
with the same outlines and forms. But that one body and that one face
will never more be born again upon the earth. And yet millions and
millions of creatures will be born, and more than that, and this
one woman will not reappear among all the women of the future. Is it
possible? It drives one mad to think of it.
“She lived for twenty-years, not more, and she has disappeared forever,
forever, forever! She thought, she smiled, she loved me. And now
nothing! The flies that die in the autumn are as much as we are in this
world. And now nothing! And I thought that her body, her fresh body, so
warm, so sweet, so white, so lovely, would rot down there in that box
under the earth. And her soul, her thought, her love--where is it?
“Not to see her again! The idea of this decomposing body, that I might
yet recognize, haunted me. I wanted to look at it once more.
“I went out with a spade, a lantern and a hammer; I jumped over the
cemetery wall and I found the grave, which had not yet been closed
entirely; I uncovered the coffin and took up a board. An abominable
odor, the stench of putrefaction, greeted my nostrils. Oh, her bed
perfumed with orris!
“Yet I opened the coffin, and, holding my lighted lantern down into it I
saw her. Her face was blue, swollen, frightful. A black liquid had oozed
out of her mouth.
“She! That was she! Horror seized me. But I stretched out my arm to draw
this monstrous face toward me. And then I was caught.
“All night I have retained the foul odor of this putrid body, the odor
of my well beloved, as one retains the perfume of a woman after a love
embrace.
“Do with me what you will.”
A strange silence seemed to oppress the room. They seemed to be waiting
for something more. The jury retired to deliberate.
When they came back a few minutes later the accused showed no fear and
did not even seem to think.
The president announced with the usual formalities that his judges
declared him to be not guilty.
He did not move and the room applauded.
The Grave appeared in Gil Blas, July 29, 1883, under the signature
of “Maufrigneuse.”