Strong as Death

July 20,

shall leave here at midnight. Do not come, for we hav

21,

in that dimly-lighted carriage, which bore you toward your dead. I could see all three of you under the oil lamp, you weeping and Annette sobbing. I saw your arrival at the station, the entrance of the castle in the midst of a group of servants, your rush up the stairs toward that room, t

y, I kiss your eye

IVI

eres,

by chance, while this begins at birth; all the others are brought to us later by the accidents of life, while this has lived in our very blood since our first day on earth. And then, and there, we have lost not only a mother but our childhood itself, which half disappears, for our little life of girlhood belonged to her as much as to ourselves. She alone knew it as we knew it; she knew about innumerable things, remote, insignificant and dear, which are and which were the first sweet emotions of our heart. To

how hard, and cruel! Yet one never thinks about it; we never look about us to see death take someone every instant, as it will soon take us. If we should look at it, if we shou

my poor mamma, nailed in that box, buried beneath that earth, in that field, under the rain, whose old

feel all these things as I do to-day. Yes, pity me, t

NN

s, Ju

e I am lost, abandoned, without ties or refuge. Everything fatigues me, bores me and irritates me. I am ceas

last few months, I liked very much to set out alone and stroll along the street, amusing myself by looking at people and things, and enjoying the mere sight of everything and the exercise of walking. I used to walk along without knowing where I was going, simply to walk, to breathe, to dream. Now, I can no longer do this. As soon as I reach the street I am oppressed by anguish, like the fear of a blind man that has lost h

you may go anywhere. If I do not see you, I may at least find Annette, who is an emanation of yourself. You and she fill the streets full of hope for me-the hope of recognizing you, whether you approach me from a distance, or whether I divine y

solitude of an old cooing pigeon when you are shedding such bitter tears. Pardon me!

t so that you ma

IVI

eres,

w that you love me! I have just passed some frightful day

tate of over-excitement that was almost delirium. I am a little more calm since the great storm of Friday. I must tell you that since the day of the funeral I could weep no more, but during the storm, the approach of which upset me, I suddenly felt the tears beginning to flow from my eyes, slow, small, burning. Oh, those first tears, how they hu

t he should take Annette with him, to distract and console her a little. They go in the carriage or on horseback as far as eight or ten leagues from Roncieres, and she returns to me rosy with youth, in spite of her sadness, her eyes shining with life,

ll that remains

NY

, Augu

place them, and they give me poses, movements, and expressions that I have painted to satiety. I make them dress again and let them go. Indeed, I can no longer see anything new, and I suffer from this as if I were blind. What is it? Is it fatigue of the eye or of the brain, exhaustion of the artistic faculty or of the optic nerve? Who knows? It seems to me that I have ceased to discover anything in the unexplored corner that I have been permitted to visit. I no longer perceive anything but that which all the world knows; I do the things that all poor painters have done; I have only one subject now, and only the observation of a vulgar pedant. Once u

forms, unimportant passers, tradesmen or domestics. The shade of the plane-trees spreads over the burning sidewalks, making a curious spot, looking almost like liquid, as if water spilled there were drying. The stillness of the leaves on the branches, and of their gray silhouettes on the asphalt, expresses the fatigue of the roasted city, slumbering and perspiring like a workman asleep on a bench in the sun. Yes, she perspires, the beggar, and she smells frightfully through her sewer mouths, the vent-holes of sinks and kitchens, the streams through which the filth of her streets is

heard for fifteen years, and they play them all together every evening in that club, which is apparently a place where one goes to be entertained. Someone should change my own

o'clock and midnight, I go home and go to bed, and while I undre

query: 'What shall I do? Whom can I go to see, so that I shall not be alone?' And I go from one friend to another, from one handshake to the next, begging for a little friendship. I gather up my crumbs, but they do not make a loaf. You, I have You, my friend, but you do not belong to me. Perhaps it is because of you that I suffer this anguish, for it is the desire for contact with you, for your presence, for the same roof over our heads, for the same walls inclosing our lives, the same interests binding our hearts together, th

I suffer too much w

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res, Au

le before I return, for I do not wish you to see me as I am. My husband sets out for Paris the day after to-morrow, and will give you

ace which frightens me, I will return to be near you. In all the world, I have only Annette

ch have wept so much, so

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or the railway station to catch a train for Roncieres; then, thinking that M. de Guilleroy must return the next day, he resigned hi

y-four hours of waiting. When he saw him enter, he

d! how happy I

things to return to Paris, for life was not gay in

a corner of the studio, under a canopy of Oriental

ss?" asked Bert

ted, and is recovering too slowly. I must co

oes she no

t was impossible for me to

s she do

for her. I should like very much to have her decide to have a chan

Ann

s a bloomi

smiled w

much grieved?"

you know that the grief of eig

ence Guille

w? I need to be cheered up, to hear

ms to me that the Cafe des Am

out a thousand details of what people had been doing and saying; and Olivier, after indifferent replies which betrayed all the boredom of his solitude, spoke of Roncieres, tried to capture from this man, in order to gather round him th

down upon the still empty benches and chairs of the inclosure up to the little stage, where the singers, in the mingled light of electric globes and fading day, displayed their striking costumes and their rosy complexions. Odors of frying

ho was radia

here much better t

"should like it much bett

nse

find Paris tain

fellow, it is alway

ings. He looked at two cocottes dining at a neighboring table with three thin young men, superlatively correct, and he slyly

emained a bachelor. You c

of his litany of melancholy, and, urged by the longing to relieve his heart, had confessed naively how much he would have enjoyed the love and companionship of a woman installed in his home, the Count, in his turn, admitted that mar

te happiness which Guilleroy praised as a matter of dut

, you were t

ed, assented to thi

ust now. Wait-since you are bored in Paris, you might go to Roncieres and bring her b

better. But do you think it would not annoy

Go, by all means,

to-morrow by the one o'clock tra

ill telegraph, so that you will

rd, but in half an hour the Count suddenly left the painter, un