Laid to Rest
Five friends had been dining together. They were all rich, middle-aged men of the world, two of them bachelors, three married men. These monthly meetings of theirs were some of the happiest evenings of their lives. They had all known each other since their youth, remained close friends, enjoyed one another’s company and often stayed talking till two o’clock in the morning. The conversation was about anything and everything that might interest or amuse a Parisian and, as in most drawing rooms, it was a kind of verbal version of the news in the morning papers.
One of the most footloose and fancy-free among them was Joseph de Bardon, a bachelor who exploited to the full all the attractions Paris has to offer. Though not exactly decadent or debauched in his habits, he managed to satisfy all the natural curiosity of a fun-loving man in his late thirties. A man of the world in the best and widest sense of the word, he was witty rather than profound, knowledgeable rather than wise and possessed a quick rather than a deep understanding of human nature. His experiences and encounters provided him with a fund of anecdotes, some edifying, some frankly hilarious. He had a reputation in society as a bright fellow with a good sense of humour – everyone’s favourite after-dinner speaker whose tales were always the ones most looked forward to. He never needed any urging to begin, as he did on this occasion.
Certain creatures at certain times and places look absolutely in their element, let’s say a goldfish in its bowl, a nun in church, or what have you. Sitting there smoking a cigar, with his elbows on the table, a half-filled glass of liqueur brandy to hand and relaxing in a warm haze of coffee and tobacco, he looked like a man in his ideal milieu. Between a couple of puffs he spoke.
‘The funniest thing happened to me not so long ago …’
A near-instantaneous chorus replied, ‘Go on, do!’
And he was off.
‘Thank you, I shall. You know I get around Paris a fair amount. As other people window-shop, I watch what’s going on. I watch the world and his brother pass by, I watch what’s going on around me. Well, some time towards the middle of last September, I left the house one afternoon with no clear idea of where I was going. You know how you always have a vague yen to go and see some pretty woman or other … you riffle through your little black book, you do a few mental comparisons, you weigh up the possible delights and you decide more or less on the spur of the moment. But when the sun’s shining and it’s warm outside you don’t always want to be cooped up indoors. On this particular day, it was warm and sunny and I lit a cigar before starting to stroll along the outer boulevard. As I was sauntering along I decided to make for the cemetery in Montmartre and have a little wander about there. I like cemeteries, you know. They sadden and they soothe me and I find I need that from time to time. And of course some of one’s chums are there, people nobody goes to see any more. I drop by every so often still. And as it happens, an old flame of mine is buried in Montmatre Cemetery, a lovely little lady I was very keen on at one point in my life, very attached to. So although it’s painful, I find it does me good. I mean all kinds of memories come flooding back while I’m there, letting my thoughts drift beside her grave. It’s all over for her of course …
‘The other reason I like cemeteries is because they’re like cities in themselves, densely populated at that. Just think how many generations of Parisians are packed in there for ever; so many people stuck in their caves, their little holes just covered with a stone or marked with a cross, while the living take up so much room and make such a stupid racket.
‘Then of course you’ve got all the monuments, some of them much more interesting than in a museum. Though I wouldn’t put them in the same league, Cavaignac’s grave reminded me so much of that masterpiece by Jean Goujon, the statue of Louis de Brézé in the underground chapel at Rouen cathedral. That’s actually the root of all so-called modern, realist art, you know. That statue of the dead Louis de Brézé is more convincing, more terrible and more suggestive of inanimate flesh still convulsed in the death-agony than any of the tortured corpses you see sculpted these days on people’s tombs.
‘But in Montmartre Cemetery you can still admire the impressive monument to Baudin, the one to Gautier, and that to Murger, on which incidentally, only the other day I spotted one poor solitary wreath of helichrysums. I wonder who put that there. Perhaps the last of the grisettes, now a very old woman and possibly one of the local concierges. It’s a pretty little statue by Millet, suffering badly from neglect and all the accumulated dirt of the years. Oh for the joys of youth, eh, Murger?
‘Anyway there I was, stepping into Montmartre Cemetery, suddenly filled with sadness of a not entirely disagreeable kind, the sort that makes a healthy fellow think “Not the most cheerful of spots, but thank God I’m not stuck in here just yet.” The feeling of autumn, the warm dampness of dead leaves in pale, weak sunshine heightened and romanticized the sense of solitude and finality surrounding this place of the dead.
‘I wandered slowly along the streets of graves where neighbours no longer call, no longer sleep together and never hear the news. Then I started reading the epitaphs. I tell you gentlemen, they are absolutely killing. Not even Labiche or Meilhac can give me more of a laugh than the language of the headstone. When you read what the nearest and dearest have put on the marble slabs and crosses, pouring out their grief and their best wishes for the happiness of the departed in the next world, and their hopes – the liars! – for a speedy reunion, it’s hilarious! Better than a Paul de Kock any day!
‘But what I love most in that cemetery is the deserted, lonely part planted with all those tall yews and cypresses, the old district where those who died long ago now lie. Soon it will become the new part of town; the green trees nourished by human corpses will be felled to make room for the recently departed to be lined up in turn under their own little marble slabs.
‘After I had wandered about long enough to refresh my mind, I realized I was now getting a little bored and that it was time to go to the last resting place of my old love and pay her my ever-faithful respects. By the time I reached her graveside I was feeling quite upset. Poor darling, she was so sweet, so loving, so fair and rosy … and now … if this spot were ever opened up … Leaning on the iron railings I whispered to her a few sad words which I dare say she is unlikely to have heard. I was just about to leave when I saw a woman in deep mourning on her knees at the next graveside. She had lifted her crêpe veil and under it could be seen a pretty head of fair hair, a crown of bright dawn under the dark night of her head-dress. I lingered. In what was obviously deep distress she had buried her face in her hands and, stiff as a statue, was deep in meditation. Absorbed by her grief and telling the painful beads of memory behind closed and hidden eyes, she seemed herself dead to the world in her loss. Suddenly I saw that she was about to break down. I could tell from the slight movement her back made, like a willow stirring in the wind. She wept gently at first then more and more violently with her neck and shoulders shaking hard and rapidly. All of a sudden she uncovered her eyes. Full of tears they were lovely. She looked wildly about her as if waking from a nightmare. She saw me looking at her, seemed ashamed and buried her whole face once more in her hands. Then she burst into convulsive sobs and her head bent slowly down towards the marble slab. She rested her forehead on it and her veil, spreading about her, covered the white corners of her beloved sepulchre like a new mourning-cloth. I heard her moan before she collapsed with her cheek against the tombstone and lay there motionless and unconscious.
‘I rushed over to her, slapped her hands and breathed on her eyelids while reading the simple epitaph beyond:
The date of death was some months earlier. I was moved to tears and redoubled my efforts to revive her. Finally they succeeded and she came to. I’m not bad-looking, not yet forty, remember, and at that moment I must have been looking extremely solicitous. At any rate, from her first glance I realized she would be both polite and grateful to me. I was not disappointed. Between further tears and sobs she told me about the officer who had been killed at Tonkin after they had been married for just one year. He had married her for love. She had been an orphan and possessed nothing but the smallest dowry.
‘I comforted her, consoled her, lifted her up, then helped her to her feet.
“You can’t stay here like this,” I said, “come on …”
“I’m not sure I can manage to walk …”
“I’ll help you, don’t worry.”
“Thank you, Monsieur, you’re very kind. Did you have someone here yourself you wanted to mourn?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“A lady?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“Your wife?”
“A … friend.”
“One can love a friend as much as a wife. Passion has its own laws.”
‘We walked away together, she leaning on me so heavily that I was almost carrying her along the paths of the cemetery. As we were leaving it, she said: “I think I’m going to faint.”
“Would you like to go in and sit down somewhere? Let me get you something to …”
“Yes thank you, I would.”
‘I noticed a place nearby, one of those restaurants where the friends of the recently buried go when they have completed their grim duties. We went in and I made her drink a cup of hot tea which seemed to restore her strength somewhat. A faint smile came to her lips and she began to tell me a little about herself. How sad, how very sad it was to be all alone in the world, to be alone at home day and night, to have no one with whom to share love, trust and intimacy.
‘It all seemed sincere and so genuine the way she told it. I felt my heart softening. She was very young, twenty at most. I flattered her a little and she responded gracefully. Then, as time was getting on, I offered to take her home by cab. She accepted. In the cab we were so close to each other, shoulder to shoulder, that we could feel the warmth of each other’s bodies through our clothing – one of the most disturbing feelings in the world, as you know. When the cab drew up in front of her house she murmured: “I really don’t think I can get up the stairs on my own. I live on the fourth floor. You’ve been so kind … could you possibly give me your arm again, please?”
‘I said of course I could, and she went up slowly, breathing hard all the time. Then at her door she added: “Do come in for a few moments so that I can thank you.”
‘It was a modest, not to say poor little apartment furnished in simple but good taste. We sat side by side on a little sofa where she started talking again about how lonely she was. She rang for her maid to bring me something to drink. No one appeared. I was delighted about this and imagined that this maid must work mornings only, in other words, she only had a cleaner. She had taken off her hat. She really was quite a charmer. Her lovely, limpid eyes were fixed on me with such a clear, direct gaze that I suddenly felt an irresistible urge. I succumbed on the spot and clasped her in my arms. On her eyelids, which had instantly closed, I rained kiss after kiss after kiss. She struggled, pushing me away and repeating: “Please … please … please … have done!”
‘What exactly did she mean? In the circumstances there were two ways of interpreting the words. To silence her I moved down from the eyes to the mouth and, putting my preferred interpretation on her request to please have done, complied with it. She put up little resistance and when later we looked at each other again after an insult to the memory of the captain killed at Tonkin she wore a languorous expression of tender resignation which dispelled any misgivings of my own.
‘I showed my gratitude by being gallant and attentive, and after an hour or so’s conversation asked: “Where do you normally dine?”
“At a little restaurant nearby.”
“All on your own?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Will you have dinner with me tonight?”
“Oh, a very good restaurant on the boulevard.”
‘She demurred for a while but I insisted and finally she gave in, reasoning that she would otherwise be terribly lonely again. Then she added, “I’d better change into something less severe,” and disappeared into her bedroom. When she emerged she was in half-mourning and wearing a very simple but elegant grey dress in which she looked slender and charming. She obviously had markedly different outfits for the cemetery and for town.
‘Dinner was very pleasant. She drank champagne, became very animated and excited, after which I went back to her apartment with her. This little liaison begun between the tombstones went on for some three weeks or so. But novelty, particularly with regard to women, eventually palls. I dropped her on the pretext of some unavoidable trip I had to make. I was very generous when we parted and she in turn very grateful. She made me promise, no, swear, to come back on my return and really seemed to care a little for me.
‘I lost no time in forming other attachments, however, and about a month went by without my having felt any particular desire to resume my funereal fling. But nor did I forget her. The memory of her haunted me like some unsolved mystery, a psychological teaser, one of those nagging little puzzles you can’t leave alone. One day, for some inexplicable reason, I wondered whether, if I went back to Montmartre Cemetery again, I might bump into her, and decided to return.
‘I walked around for a long time but there was no one there apart from the usual sort of people who visit the place, mourners who have not yet severed all ties with their dead. At the grave of the captain killed at Tonkin no one mourned over the marble slab, no flowers lay there, no wreaths. However, as I was walking through another district of the city of the departed I suddenly saw a couple, a man and a woman in deep mourning, coming towards me down a narrow avenue lined with crosses. To my amazement as they approached, I recognized the woman. It was she! Seeing me she blushed. As I brushed past her she gave me a tiny signal, the merest glance, but conveying in the clearest possible way both: “Don’t show you know me,” and “Come back and see me, darling.”
‘The man with her was about fifty, distinguished-looking and well-dressed, with the rosette of the Légion d’honneur in his lapel. He was supporting her just as I had done when we both left the cemetery that day.
‘I went off, flabbergasted by what I had just seen and trying to imagine what tribe of creatures she belonged to, hunting as she obviously did on this sepulchral terrain. Was she a single prostitute who had struck on the brilliant idea of frequenting graveyards and picking up unhappy men still haunted by the loss of a wife or a mistress and troubled by the memory of past caresses? Was she unique? Or were there more like her? Was it a professional speciality to work the cemetery like the street? The loved ones of those laid to rest! Or was she alone in having conceived the psychologically sound idea of exploiting the feelings of amorous nostalgia awakened in these mournful venues?
‘I was longing to know whose widow she had chosen to be that day.’