fe.

"Josephina. It is I. Do you forgive me?"

It was a childish longing to hear the voice from beyond that might pour
on his soul a balm of forgiveness and forgetting; a desire of humbling
himself, of weeping, of having her listen to him, smile to him from the
depth of the void, at the great revolution which had been carried out in
his spirit. He wanted to tell her--and he did tell her silently with the
speech of his feelings--that he loved her, that he had resuscitated her
in his thoughts, now that he had lost her forever, with a love which he
had never had for her in her earthly life. He felt ashamed before her
grave; ashamed of the difference of their fates.

He begged her forgiveness for living, for still feeling vigorous and
young, for now loving her without reality, in a wild hope, when he had
been cold and indifferent at her departure, with his thoughts on another
woman, hoping for her death with criminal craving. Wretch! And he was
still alive! And she, so kind, so sweet, buried forever, lost in the
depths of eternal, ruthless death!

He wept; at last he wept those hot, sincere tears which compel
forgiveness. It was the weeping which he had so long desired. Now he
felt that they approached each other, that they were almost together,
separated only by a strip of marble and a little earth. His fancy saw
her poor remains and in their decay he loved them, he worshiped them
with a calm passion that rose above earthly miseries. Nothing which had
once been Josephina's could cause him repugnance or horror. If he could
but open that white case! If he could kiss her, take her ashes with him,
that they might go with him on his pilgrimage, like the household gods
of the ancients! He no longer saw the cemetery, he did not hear the
birds nor the rustling of the branches; he seemed to live in a cloud,
looking only at that white grave, the marble slab,--the last resting
place of his beloved.

She forgave him; her body rose before him, such as it had been in her
youth, as he had painted it. Her deep eyes were fixed on his, eyes that
shone with love. He seemed to hear her childish voice laughing, admiring
little trifles, as in the happy days. It was a resurrection,--the image
of the dead woman was before him, formed no doubt by the invisible atoms
of her being which floated over her grave, by something of the essence
of her life which still fluttered around the material remains, reluctant
to say farewell before they started