Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1894-05-09
HIS FIRST'S ASHES.

When the wife of Durande, captain in
the One Hundred and Twelfth cuiras-
siers of the line, died, he was sorely
stricken with sorrow, and would not be
comforted. In fact, he had hardly had
time to enjoy his happiness or appre-
ciate his treasure, for they had been
married only month, when she was
taken from him in the midst of their
wedding tour in Italy
Just about returning to Paris, she fell
i'll in Rome and died of fever, in spite
of the many physicians called to attend
her and the devoted care of her husband,
who never left her side till she breathed
her last
Conscious to the end, she bravely
sought to console him.
''It was not given to mortals," she
said, "to be happy for long. Our joy
has been too great; it could not last.
Do not weep, dearest" she cried; "let
me pass away in peace, without the
memory of your distressed face. Smile;
do not look so sadr and she raised her
trembling hand and caressingly laid it
ON his cheek.
''You are a soldier" pursued she;
"death should have no terrors for you.
| have loved you only; do me, then, one
last little favor. wish to be near you
always, even in death. beseech you,
cremate me, then; reduce me to little
heap of ashes that you can carry always
with you. | shall never disturb you.
How strange it seems to call a heap of
ashes T-yet SO it will be. You will
sometimes glance at me thus, and can
never entirely forget mer'
Nevertheless when Durande returned
to Paris he was a changed man. He was
thin and haggard; his eyes had lost their
luster, his step its elastic spring and
confidence.
Courage, courage, my boyl' his colo
mel would say to him.
"Be brave, my friend" repeated his
brother officers.
But joy and brightness had gone out
of Durande's life. The once brilliant
soldier was broken man.
No one ON arrival was allowed to
touch his luggage, and he himself, with
care and weeping, drew from his satchel
an artistic little vase that he solemnly
charged his brosseur never on any &C.
count to lay hands upon.
ga token of poor madameP" the man
ventured to ask.
"Yes, token," Durande responded;
before which, the slim Roman urn that
held all that was left of his poor wife's re-
mains, he knelt and wept bitterly when
alone again. At night it stood in full
view upon cabinet beside his bed, that
his eyes might rest upon it when not
closed in sleep and by day. When his
leave had expired and he had returned
to duty, he was distrait, a stranger to his
comrades, joining in none of their pleas
ures or amusements, seeming to live only
in the memory of his lost wife and that
urn-which might be knocked over.
He had placed her portrait in every
room in his house, and by a strange para
dox of sentiment it was here, among all
these tender recollections, that he passed
his least miserable hours.
By degrees, through steady contem-
plation, perhaps, the sight of the Roman
urn produced a less painful effect upon
the disconsolate widower, and no longer
caused him the cruel heart pangs Of the
first days of bereavement.
He was now able to picture his dar-
ling as she had been in the zenith of
strength and beauty, gay, smiling charm
ing. Again and again he recalled and
lived over the moments of that honey
moon journey, and grew happy himself
in this sweet, posthumous revival Of
radiant hours.
When at work the urn stood on his
writing table, and he thought how in
life and in that bygone time he had writ
ten and pondered and she had sat quiz
etly beside him reading or sewing tran
gully, silently, without disturbing him.
Six months passed, heightened to a
year, and now and then it ithappened that
Durande forgot the urn and left it on his
table at night instead of carrying it to
his bedroom. Finally he enshrined it
for good on his Office table. Not that
the memory of his wife was less than at
first, but because in time it was borne
in upon him that funereal deposit like
this was unsanitary, unhealthy in a
sleeping room.
Nevertheless every day it was sur
rounded, as usual, with lilies and roses,
his wife's favorite flowers.
The one year heightened to two, and
Durande had returned to his bachelor
life.
"'Tis wrong to bury yourself alive
thus" said his friends and his wife's re-
lations; "begin, go into the world
! again"