The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-09-11
THE GRAVES Seer ETS.
Sometimes It's a Good Thing for
the Bead and Living That
the Past is Buried.

had loved her SO madiyl Why does
one love? How odd that from a certain
moment one sees in the world but one
being, in the heart but one desire, OF
the lips but one name, a nam which
rises necessarily, which rises from the
depths of the soul like water from its
source, which rises to the lips, and which
one says, which one repeats, which one
murmurs continually everywhere like 6
prayer.
l will tell you our story. Love has
but one, always the same. I had met
and loved her. That is all. And I had
lived for a year in her tenderness, in hei
arms, in her caresses, in her looks, in
her robes, in her words, enwrapped,
bound, imprisoned in everything, that ]
did not know whether / was dead OF
alive, on the old earth or somewhere
else.
And then she died. How? I do moi
know; at least no longer know.
She came home wet one rainy night.
and the next day she was coughing. She
coughed for a week and then took to her
bed.
What happened? I no longer know.
Doctors came, wrote, went away.
They brought remedies; a woman made
her drink them. Her hands were hot,
her forehead burning and damp, her look
glittering and sad. I spoke to her; she
answered me. What did we say to each
other? 1no longer know. have for
gotten everything, everything, every
thing! She died. ! remember very well
her little sgh-her little sigh SO weak
the last. The nurse said, "Aht" I I'M.
derstood. / understood.
/ knew nothing more, nothing. l saw
q priest who uttered these words: "You1
sweetheart" 1t seemed to me he insult
ed her. She being dead no one had
any right to know that. I dismissed
him. Another came who was very good,
very gentle. Iwept when he spoke tc
me of her.
They consulted me about a thousand
things in connection with the funeral. ]
know no more. Still, I remember very
well the coffin, the noise Of the hammer
when they nailed her in it. Ali my
God.
She was buried! Buried! She! In
that hole! A few persons had come
friends. went away. / ran. A long
time / walked the streets. Then I went
home. The next day I started on a
journey.
Yesterday / returned to Paris.
When | saw my room again, our
room, our bed, our furniture, this whole
house, in which was left all that remains
of Q being after it's death, I was seized
with such a violent renewal of sorrow
that / came near opening the window
and throwing myself into the street.
Unable longer to live in the midst OF
these things, of these walls which had
contained her, sheltered her and which
must keep in their impereeptible assures
a thousand atoms Of her, of her flesh
and of her breath, I took my hat to &C
away. Suddenly, just before reaching
the door, I passed by the large mirror in
the vestibule, which she had placed there
in order to view herself from head to
foot every day as she went out, to see if
her entire toilet was correct and pretty,
from her boots to her hair.
And / stopped short in front Of this
mirror which had 60 often reflected her.
So often, so often, that it must have pre-.
served her image.
There / stood, erect, quivering, with
eyes fixed on the glass, on the fat,
profound empty glass, which had con-
tanned her entirely, possessed her as I, as
my passionate look had possessed her. It
seemed to me that / loved this glass. ]
touched it; it was cold. Oh, the mem
oryi the memory! Mournful mirror,
burning mirror, living mirror, horrible
mirror, which causes one to suffer all
the tortures! Happy the man whose
heart, like a glass GRO which refiec-
tions glide and disappear, forgets all
that it has contained, all that has passed
before it, all that has contemplated and
admired itself in it's affection, in its lovel
How I suffered
/ went out, and in spite Of myself,
without knowing it, without wishing it,
I went toward the cemetery. I found
her very simple tombstone, a marble
cross with these few words upon it, 'sShe
loved, was loved and died"
She was there, beneath, decaying!
How horrible! I sobbed, my forehead
on the ground.
There | remained a long time, a very
long time. Then I perceived that the
night was coming on. Then a strange,
mad desire, the desire of a desperate
lover. seized me. I wished to pass the
night beside her, a last night, in weep
ing over her grave. But I should be
seen and driven away.
What was I to do? ! resorted to
strategy. Irose and began to wander
about in this city of the disappeared.
On and on / went. How small this city
is beside the other, that Of the living.
And yet how much more numerous than
the living are these dead. For us, the
four generations who live in the sun
light at the same time, drinking the
water of the springs and the wine of the
vineyards and eating the bread of the
fields, much room is needed, high houses,
wide streets.
And for all the generations of the
dead, for the entire scale of humanity
down to us, almost nothing; a field, al
most nothing! The earth takes them
back again. oblivion effaces them. Fare