And I fled too.
There was no doubt after that! I was dead! Very very dead! More dead
perhaps than He, than the other Man, whose corpse I see, I persist
in seeing there inside its coffin ... a terribly wasted corpse,
frightfully decomposed. More dead than He, because He does not know
that He is dead; while ... I ... I....
Furthermore it was not his funeral they were celebrating; it was
mine.... I am the man those tears were for ... and those flowers, and
those uniforms, and the hushed voices of the multitude ... all that
fascinated gazing at my decoration, my shoulder straps, my sabre ...
there on the coffin. And those same people are now shivering out there
in this cold of a December evening ... to pay their respects to ... me
... to me ... not to Him.
And I should be there too ... with them. I must hurry....
* * * * * * * * *
The red of the sunset is turning to lavender ... a color of death and
mourning.... The leafless sycamores along the boulevard are spreading
on that sombre sheet of flame the black lace-work of their twigs and
branchlets. At the zenith a depth of emerald green is growing deeper....
Is there something beyond death, I wonder? Something? Anything?
No! I cannot believe that possible! I can see that corpse too well ...
that corpse, in its coffin....
* * * * * * * * *
A great crowd around my grave ... almost as great as the throng in
front of my house.... It is only a short walk from town ... the
graveyard....
No, the ceremony is over.... The sexton is filling the grave.... I can
hear the gravel as it strikes my coffin....
It seems to be all covered now.... I walked too slowly.... But I was
very tired....
The earth they are throwing into the hole.... I can feel it heavier and
heavier upon my chest.... Six feet deep.... I never knew it could be so
very heavy!
Now everything is over. The grave is filled.... The people are going
home.
Home? No, I shall stay here! Where have I to go? This place here,
henceforth, is home for me ... my home!