DEATH
By Guy de Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant / La muerte (A short story in Spanish)
Guy de Maupassant / A morta (A short story in Portuguese)
Guy de Maupassant / La morte (A short story in French)
I had loved her madly! Why does one love? Why does one love? How queer
it is to see only one being in the world, to have only one thought in one's
mind, only one desire in the heart, and only one name on the lips--a name which
comes up continually, rising, like the water in a spring, from the depths of
the soul to the lips, a name which one repeats over and over again, which one
whispers ceaselessly, everywhere, like a prayer.
"I am
going to tell you our story, for love only has one, which is always the same. I
met her and loved her; that is all. And for a whole year I have lived on her
tenderness, on her caresses, in her arms, in her dresses, on her words, so
completely wrapped up, bound, and absorbed in everything which came from her,
that I no longer cared whether it was day or night, or whether I was dead or
alive, on this old earth of ours.
"And
then she died. How? I do not know; I no longer know anything. But one evening
she came home wet, for it was raining heavily, and the next day she coughed,
and she coughed for about a week, and took to her bed. What happened I do not
remember now, but doctors came, wrote, and went away. Medicines were brought, and
some women made her drink them. Her hands were hot, her forehead was burning,
and her eyes bright and sad. When I spoke to her, she answered me, but I do not
remember what we said. I have forgotten everything, everything, everything! She
died, and I very well remember her slight, feeble sigh. The nurse said: 'Ah!'
and I understood, I understood!
"I knew
nothing more, nothing. I saw a priest, who said: 'Your mistress?' and it seemed
to me as if he were insulting her. As she was dead, nobody had the right to say
that any longer, and I turned him out. Another came who was very kind and
tender, and I shed tears when he spoke to me about her.
"They
consulted me about the funeral, but I do not remember anything that they said,
though I recollected the coffin, and the sound of the hammer when they nailed
her down in it. Oh! God, God!
"She
was buried! Buried! She! In that hole! Some people came--female friends. I made
my escape and ran away. I ran, and then walked through the streets, went home,
and the next day started on a journey.
"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 generations who see the
daylight at the same time, drink water from the spring, and wine from the
vines, and eat bread from the plains.
"And
for all the generations of the dead, for all that ladder of humanity that has
descended down to us, there is scarcely anything, scarcely anything! The earth
takes them back, and oblivion effaces them. Adieu!
"At the
end of the cemetery, I suddenly perceived that I was in its oldest part, where
those who had been dead a long time are mingling with the soil, where the
crosses themselves are decayed, where possibly newcomers will be put to-morrow.
It is full of untended roses, of strong and dark cypress-trees, a sad and
beautiful garden, nourished on human flesh.
"I was
alone, perfectly alone. So I crouched in a green tree and hid myself there
completely amid the thick and somber branches. I waited, clinging to the stem,
like a shipwrecked man does to a plank.
"When
it was quite dark, I left my refuge and began to walk softly, slowly,
inaudibly, through that ground full of dead people. I wandered about for a long
time, but could not find her tomb again. I went on with extended arms, knocking
against the tombs with my hands, my feet, my knees, my chest, even with my
head, without being able to find her. I groped about like a blind man finding
his way, I felt the stones, the crosses, the iron railings, the metal wreaths,
and the wreaths of faded flowers! I read the names with my fingers, by passing
them over the letters. What a night! What a night! I could not find her again!
"There
was no moon. What a night! I was frightened, horribly frightened in these
narrow paths, between two rows of graves. Graves! graves! graves! nothing but
graves! On my right, on my left, in front of me, around me, everywhere there
were graves! I sat down on one of them, for I could not walk any longer, my
knees were so weak. I could hear my heart beat! And I heard something else as
well. What? A confused, nameless noise. Was the noise in my head, in the
impenetrable night, or beneath the mysterious earth, the earth sown with human
corpses? I looked all around me, but I cannot say how long I remained there; I
was paralyzed with terror, cold with fright, ready to shout out, ready to die.
"Suddenly,
it seemed to me that the slab of marble on which I was sitting, was moving.
Certainly it was moving, as if it were being raised. With a bound, I sprang on
to the neighboring tomb, and I saw, yes, I distinctly saw the stone which I had
just quitted rise upright. Then the dead person appeared, a naked skeleton, pushing
the stone back with its bent back. I saw it quite clearly, although the night
was so dark. On the cross I could read:
" 'Here
lies Jacques Olivant, who died at the age of fifty-one. He loved his family,
was kind and honorable, and died in the grace of the Lord.'
"The
dead man also read what was inscribed on his tombstone; then he picked up a
stone off the path, a little, pointed stone and began to scrape the letters
carefully. He slowly effaced them, and with the hollows of his eyes he looked
at the places where they had been engraved. Then with the tip of the bone that
had been his forefinger, he wrote in luminous letters, like those lines which
boys trace on walls with the tip of a lucifer match:
" 'Here
reposes Jacques Olivant, who died at the age of fifty-one. He hastened his
father's death by his unkindness, as he wished to inherit his fortune, he
tortured his wife, tormented his children, deceived his neighbors, robbed
everyone he could, and died wretched.'
"When
he had finished writing, the dead man stood motionless, looking at his work. On
turning round I saw that all the graves were open, that all the dead bodies had
emerged from them, and that all had effaced the lies inscribed on the
gravestones by their relations, substituting the truth instead. And I saw that
all had been the tormentors of their neighbors--malicious, dishonest,
hypocrites, liars, rogues, calumniators, envious; that they had stolen,
deceived, performed every disgraceful, every abominable action, these good
fathers, these faithful wives, these devoted sons, these chaste daughters,
these honest tradesmen, these men and women who were called irreproachable.
They were all writing at the same time, on the threshold of their eternal
abode, the truth, the terrible and the holy truth of which everybody was
ignorant, or pretended to be ignorant, while they were alive.
"I
thought that SHE also must have written something on her tombstone, and now
running without any fear among the half-open coffins, among the corpses and
skeletons, I went toward her, sure that I should find her immediately. I
recognized her at once, without seeing her face, which was covered by the
winding-sheet, and on the marble cross, where shortly before I had read:
" 'She
loved, was loved, and died.'
I now saw:
" 'Having
gone out in the rain one day, in order to deceive her lover, she caught cold
and died.'
"It
appears that they found me at daybreak, lying on the grave unconscious."
31
mai 1887
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