XXXIX
Now all is written. I have told my story. Here my pencil rests on this flagstone, this lid of shale that covers my grave and already bears my epitaph. My pencil.... I laid it here. It is worn to the wood. And I have closed the register. All its pages to the very last are covered with my cramped close-scribbled writing.
All is written. All—everything! And everything I was in duty bound to write—for men and women—my brothers and sisters—are in danger though they know it not. And I had to write ... because my tongue is tied ... paralyzed, petrified in my mouth....
All is written. You who read what I have written know the truth ... for the love of your God, if you have one, do not doubt my word ... but understand, believe....
The sun has vanished below the horizon. Night has come.... My last night.... Yes, death will come to me ere long! My life has run its course. Its lamp is going out, because the oil has burned away!
On this long polished flagstone which has been my writing table and on which my elbows rest I can still spell out my epitaph, though the light is failing:
Here Lies
CHARLES-ANDRÉ NARCY
Born April 27, 1878
Died December 21, 1908.
December 21, 1908 ... or January 22, 1909.... January 22, 1909—that’s today! Just a month ... no, not quite a month ... a month less one day.... I have been here on this tomb, on my tomb, waiting for death, my second death....
A month.... One month.... And all the while my eyes have been gazing down under this flagstone ... my eyes? those other eyes, I mean ... which see ... which insist on seeing ... implacably ... gazing down under this flagstone upon a coffin ... my coffin.... The coffin is quite new and undecayed.... But it holds only a skeleton ... a naked skeleton, without clothing ... its clothes ... my clothes, were far too thin ... they fell to dust immediately. Nothing except the bones are left; and they too are all but vanishing. On them, however, I can see something ... the letter of the colonel of artillery ... they buried it by mistake with the corpse ... it is still quite legible....
Yes, a skeleton ... a skeleton about to fall away to dust ... nothing but a skeleton.... How can I continue living if I am nothing, after all, but that skeleton plus this ruin of wasted flesh and bone that has collapsed on this grave here? Impossible, assuredly! Impossible, fortunately....
A month.... one month! The earth came up around the edges of this flagstone ... so heavy that it sank into the loosened ground.... Some workmen came and levelled the mound again, tamping the earth down under the stone ... so heavy the stone ... and heavy the earth under it.... Oh, my tired body cannot support such burdens longer....
* * * * * * * * *
Tomorrow when they come to bury me they will put me in another grave.... And I shall have that other earth and another stone to bear! No man surely was ever tormented thus!
* * * * * * * * *
The sun is sinking again.... In the west the sky is reddening ... as red as it was the day of my funeral....
The weather is clear.... Not a single cloud disturbs the even azure of the firmament.... The winter wind has fallen and the branches of the cypress trees have ceased their murmuring.... A gleam of blood-red light is striking on their black tips.... Over all the heavens and over all the earth a great and sombre beauty glows.... Splendor and Serenity ... reaching even into my soul....
Farewell....
FINIS.