“i'm going to inform you our story, for romance simplest has one, that's usually the equal. I met her and cherished her; this is all. And for a whole year i've lived on her tenderness, on her caresses, in her hands, in her clothes, on her phrases, so absolutely wrapped up, bound, imprisoned in the whole thing which got here from her, that I now not knew whether it became day or night, if i was lifeless or alive, on this old earth of ours, or someplace else.
“and then she died. How? I do now not recognize. I now not realize; but one evening she got here home moist, for it became raining closely, and the following day she coughed, and she or he coughed for about every week, and took to her mattress. What occurred I do not remember now, however doctors came, wrote and went away. drug treatments have been delivered, and a few women made her drink them. Her palms had been warm, her forehead become burning, and her eyes vivid and unhappy. when I spoke to her, she answered me, but I do not take into account what we said. i haveforgotten the whole thing, the whole lot, the whole thing! She died, and i thoroughly consider her slight, feeble sigh. The nurse said: ‘Ah! and that i understood, I understood!’
“I knew nothing extra, nothing. I noticed a priest, who stated: ‘Your mistress?’ and it seemed to me as though he had beeninsulting her. As she become lifeless, no person had the right to realize that any further, and that i grew to become him out. another got here who became very type and smooth, and i shed tears while he spoke to me approximately her.
“They consulted me about the funeral, however I do not keep in mind some thing that they stated, although I recollected the coffin, and the sound of the hammer once they nailed her down in it. Oh! God, God!
“She was buried! Buried! She! In that hollow! a few human beings got here—woman friends. I made my break out, and ran away; I ran, after which I walked via the streets, and went home, and the next day I commenced on a journey.”
“the day prior to this I again to Paris, and when I saw my room once more—our room, our bed, our furnishings, the whole thing that remains of the existence of a person after demise, i was seized by means of this sort of violent attack of freshgrief, that i was very near opening the window and throwing myself out into the road. As I couldn't stay to any extent further among these items, between those partitions which had enclosed and sheltered her, and which retained one thousand atoms of her, of her pores and skin and of her breath in their imperceptible crevices, I took up my hat to make my escape, and simply as I reached the door, I passed the large glass within the hall, which she had placed there in order that she is probably capable of have a look at herself every day from head to foot as she went out, to look if her bathroomappeared properly, and was correct and quite, from her little boots to her bonnet.
“and that i stopped brief in front of that looking-glass wherein she had so frequently been reflected. So often, so regularly, that it additionally ought to have retained her reflection. i was status there, trembling, with my eyes constanton the glass—on that flat, profound, empty glass—which had contained her completely, and had possessed her as much as I had, as my passionate appears had. I felt as if I cherished that glass. I touched it, it changed into cold. Oh! the recollection! sorrowful mirror, burning mirror, terrible mirror, which makes us go through such torments! satisfied are the guys whose hearts neglect the entirety that it has contained, the whole lot that has handed earlier than it, the whole lotthat has checked out itself in it, that has been reflected in its affection, in its love! How I suffer!
“I went on without understanding it, with out wishing it; I went toward the cemetery. i discovered her easy grave, a white marble move, with those few words:
“‘She cherished, was cherished, and died.‘
“She is there, under, decayed! How terrible! I sobbed with my brow at the ground, and i stopped there for a long time, a long time. Then I noticed that it become getting dark, and a odd, a mad want, the wish of a despairing lover seized me. I needed to bypass the night, the last night in weeping on her grave. however I need to be seen and driven out. How was I to manage? i used to be foxy, and got up, and started out to roam about in that town of the dead. I walked and walked. How small this city is, in comparison with the alternative, the city wherein we stay: And but, how a lot more severa the useless are than the dwelling. We want excessive houses, extensive streets, and lots room for the 4 generations who see the daylight on the equal time, drink water from the spring, and wine from the vines, and consume the bread from the plains.
“And for all of the generations of the lifeless, for all that ladder of humanity that has descended down to us, there'sscarcely something afield, scarcely anything! The earth takes them returned, oblivion effaces them. Adieu!
“on the give up of the deserted cemetery, I perceived that the only in which the ones who have been useless a long termend mingling with the soil, where the crosses themselves decay, where the closing comers can be put to-morrow. it's miles complete of untended roses, of sturdy and darkish cypress timber, a sad and delightful garden, nourished on human flesh.
“i used to be on my own, perfectly alone, and so I crouched in a inexperienced tree, and hid myself there completely a few of the thick and somber branches, and i waited, clinging to the stem, like a shipwrecked guy does to a plank.
“whilst it was pretty darkish, I left my safe haven and started out to stroll softly, slowly, inaudibly, via that ground full of lifeless human beings, and that i wandered about for a long time, however couldn't locate her again. I went on with prolonged hands, knocking against the tombs with my fingers, my ft, my knees, my chest, regardless of my head, withoutbeing able to discover her. I touched and felt about like a blind guy groping his manner, I felt the stones, the crosses, the iron railings, the steel wreaths, and the wreaths of diminished flowers! I read the names with my palms, by means ofpassing them over the letters. What a night! What a night! I could not locate her again!
“there has been no moon. What a night! i'm apprehensive, horribly nervous in these slim paths, among rows of graves. Graves! graves! graves! nothing however graves! On my proper, on my left, in front of me, around me, everywhere there were graves! I sat down on one in all them, for I could not walk any more, my knees have been so vulnerable. I should pay attention my heart beat! and i could listen some thing else as well. What? A careworn, nameless noise. was the noise in my head in the impenetrable night time, or underneath the mysterious earth, the earth sown with human corpses? I seemed all round me, but I cannot say how lengthy I remained there; i used to be paralyzed with terror, drunk with fright, equipped to shout out, geared up to die.
“suddenly, it appeared to me as if the slab of marble on which i used to be sitting, was shifting. simply, it was shifting, as though it have been being raised. With a sure, I sprang on to the neighboring tomb, and that i noticed, yes, I distinctlynoticed the stone which I had simply quitted, rise upright, and the dead individual appeared, a naked skeleton, which changed into pushing the stone returned with its bent returned. I noticed it quite certainly, although the night turned into so darkish. at the pass I could examine:
“‘here lies Jacques Olivant, who died at the age of 50-one. He cherished his family, turned into type and honorable, and died within the grace of the Lord.‘
“The lifeless guy also examine what turned into inscribed on his tombstone; then he picked up a stone off the direction, a touch, pointed stone, and started to scrape the letters cautiously. He slowly effaced them altogether, and with the hollows of his eyes he looked at the places in which they were engraved, and, with the end of the bone, that were his forefinger, he wrote in luminous letters, like those lines which one traces on partitions with the tip of a lucifer suit:
“‘right here reposes Jacques Olivant, who died at the age of fifty-one. He hastened his father’s loss of life by his unkindness, as he needed to inherit his fortune, he tortured his wife, tormented his children, deceived his acquaintances, robbed everyone he could, and died wretched.‘
“when he had completed writing, the dead guy stood immobile, looking at his work, and on turning round I noticed that every one the graves were open, that every one the dead bodies had emerged from them, and that all had effaced the lies inscribed on the gravestones by using their members of the family, and had substituted the truth as an alternative. and that i saw that each one were tormentors of their friends—malicious, cheating, hypocrites, liars, rogues, calumniators, green with envy; that they had stolen, deceived, completed each disgraceful, each abominable action, those desirablefathers, these faithful wives, these dedicated sons, these chaste daughters, those honest tradesmen, these males and females who were called irreproachable, and that they were known as irreproachable, and that they had been all writing on the identical time, on the edge of their everlasting homestead, the fact, the terrible and the holy fact which every person is unaware of, or pretends to be ignorant of, while the others are alive.
“I concept that she also have to have written some thing on her tombstone, and now, jogging with none fear most of the1/2-open coffins, many of the corpses and skeletons, I went toward her, positive that I need to find her at once. I identifiedher immediately, with out seeing her face, which turned into blanketed through the winding-sheet, and on the marble pass, in which shortly earlier than I had read: ‘She cherished, became loved, and died,’ I now noticed: ‘Having long goneout someday, so as to mislead her lover, she caught cold in the rain and died.‘”
“It seems that they determined me at daybreak, lying at the grave unconscious.”
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