“I went on without knowing it, without wishing it; I went towards 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, a 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 the 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 afield, scarcely anything!  The earth takes them back, oblivion effaces them.  Adieu!

“At the end of the abandoned cemetery, I suddenly perceived that the one where those who have been dead a long time finish mingling with the soil, where the crosses themselves decay, where the last comers 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, and so I crouched in a green tree, and hid myself there completely among the thick and somber branches, and 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, and I wandered about for a long time, but could not find her 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 touched and felt about like a blind man groping 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 am 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 could hear 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, drunk with fright, ready to shout out, ready to die.