k of great beauty. It was also to refresh my memory, for
all our love was in that book.

"I did not succeed in reconstructing the poems. The weakening of my
faculties soon after they were written, the three years afterward
during which I made a devout effort not to revive the poems even in
thought, since they were not to keep on living--all this had actually
wiped the book out of my mind. It was with difficulty that I recalled--
and then only by chance--the mere titles of some of the poems, or a few
of the verses. Of some parts, all I retained was just a confused echo.
I needed the manuscript itself, which was in the tomb.

"One night, I felt myself going there.

"I felt myself going there after periods of hesitation and inward
struggles which it is useless to tell you about because the struggles
themselves were useless. I thought of the other man, of the
Englishman, of my brother in misery and crime as I walked along the
length of the cemetery wall while the wind froze my legs. I kept
saying to myself it was not the same thing, and this insane assurance
was enough to make me keep on.

"I asked myself if I should take a light. With a light it would be
quick. I should see the box at once and should not have to touch
anything else--but then I should see /everything!/ I preferred to grope
in the dark. I had rubbed a handkerchief sprinkled with perfume over
my face, and I shall never forget the deception of this odour. For an
instant, in the stupefaction of my terror, I did not recognise the
first thing I touched--her necklace--I saw it again on her living body.
The box! The corpse gave it to me with a squashing sound. Something
grazed me faintly.

"I had meant to tell you only a few things, Anna. I thought I should
not have time to tell you how everything happened. But it is better
so, better for me that you should know all. Life, which has been so
cruel to me, is kind at this moment when you are listening, you who
will live. And my desire to express what I felt, to revive the past,
which made of me a being accursed during the days I am telling you
about, is a benefit this evening which passes from me to you, and from
you to me."

The young woman was bending toward him attentively. She was motionless
and silent. What could she have said, what could she have done, that
would have been sweeter than her silent attention?

"The rest of the night I read the stolen manuscript. Was it not the
only way