* * * *

"Yesterday I returned to Paris, and when I saw my room again--our room,
our bed, our furniture, everything that remains of the life of a human
being after death--I was seized by such a violent attack of fresh
grief, that I felt like opening the window and throwing myself out into
the street. I could not remain any longer among these things, between
these walls which had inclosed and sheltered her, which retained a
thousand atoms of her, of her skin and of her breath, in their
imperceptible crevices. I took up my hat to make my escape, and just as
I reached the door, I passed the large glass in the hall, which she had
put there so that she might look at herself every day from head to foot
as she went out, to see if her toilette looked well, and was correct
and pretty, from her little boots to her bonnet.

"I stopped short in front of that looking-glass in which she had so
often been reflected--so often, so often, that it must have retained
her reflection. I was standing there, trembling, with my eyes fixed on
the glass--on that flat, profound, empty glass--which had contained her
entirely, and had possessed her as much as I, as my passionate looks
had. I felt as if I loved that glass. I touched it; it was cold. Oh!
the recollection! sorrowful mirror, burning mirror, horrible mirror, to
make men suffer such torments! Happy is the man whose heart forgets
everything that it has contained, everything that has passed before it,
everything that has looked at itself in it, or has been reflected in
its affection, in its love! How I suffer!

"I went out without knowing it, without wishing it, and toward the
cemetery. I found her simple grave, a white marble cross, with these
few words:

"'She loved, was loved, and died.'

"She is there, below, decayed! How horrible! I sobbed with my forehead
on the ground, and I stopped there for a long time, a long time. Then I
saw that it was getting dark, and a strange, mad wish, the wish of a
despairing lover, seized me. I wished to pass the night, the last
night, in weeping on her grave. But I should be seen and driven out.
How was I to manage? I was cunning, and got up and began to roam about
in that city of the dead. I walked and walked. How small this city is,
in comparison with the other, the city in which we live. And yet, how
much more numerous the dead are than the living. We want high houses,
wide streets, and much room for the four genera