WAS IT A DREAM
READ ALONG WITH THE STORY BELOW:
A man has lost his wife and decides to go back to the room they have stayed in, in Paris. In his grief he decides to visit his wife's tombstone, but wanders off in the graveyard and gets lost. When he again locates his wife's grave, he finds the dead have risen from their tombs, and rewritten her inscription with confessions of the truth of her death!
DOWNLOAD
"Was It a Dream?"
by Guy de Maupassant
"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, whichis always the same. I met her and loved her; that is all. And fora
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."
Comments
Post a Comment