notion of mine to marry Marguerite. I recalled her weariness at
Guerande, her impatience, her dull, monotonous life. The dear creature
had been very good to me, but I had never been a real lover; she had
mourned for me as a sister for her brother, not otherwise. Why should I
again disturb her life? A dead man is not jealous.
When I lifted my eyelids I saw the garden of the Luxembourg before me. I
entered it and took a seat in the sun, dreaming with a sense of infinite
restfulness. The thought of Marguerite stirred me softly. I pictured
her in the provinces, beloved, petted and very happy. She had grown
handsomer, and she was the mother of three boys and two girls. It was
all right. I had behaved like an honest man in dying, and I would not
commit the cruel folly of coming to life again.
Since then I have traveled a good deal. I have been a little everywhere.
I am an ordinary man who has toiled and eaten like anybody else. Death
no longer frightens me, but it does not seem to care for me now that
I have no motive in living, and I sometimes fear that I have been
forgotten upon earth.
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Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille, by Emile Zola
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