‘Really, Monsieur Paul, between ourselves—of course it is a splendid work—a fine Védrine—but you must allow that it is a little triste!
‘Well, but for a tomb——’ suggested Paul.
‘And then, if you will not mind, there is this.’ With much hesitation she came to the point. Really, you know, a man upon a camp bedstead with nothing on! Really she did not think it fit. It might be taken for a portrait!’ And just think of poor Herbert, the correctest of men! What would it look like?’
‘There is a good deal in that,’ said Paul gravely, and he threw his friend Védrine overboard with as little concern as a litter of kittens. ‘After all, if you do not like the figure, we can put another, or none at all. It would have a more striking effect. The tent empty; the bed ready, and no one to lie on it!’
The Princess, whose chief satisfaction was that the shirtless ruffian would not be seen there, exclaimed, ‘Oh, how glad I am! how nice of you! I don’t mind telling you now, that I cried over it all night!’
As usual, when they stopped at the entrance gate, the footman took the wreaths and followed some way behind, while Colette and Paul climbed in the heat a path made soft by the recent showers. She leaned upon his arm, and from time to time ‘hoped that she did not tire him.’ He shook his head with a sad smile. There were few people in the cemetery. A gardener and a keeper recognised the familiar figure of the Princess with a respectful bow. But when they had left the avenue and passed the upper terraces, it was all solitude and shade. Besides the birds in the trees they heard only the grinding of the saw and the metallic clink of the chisel, sounds perpetual in Père-la-Chaise, as in some city always in building and never finished.
Two or three times Madame de Rosen had seen her companion glance with displeasure at the tall lacquey in his long black overcoat and cockade, whose funereal figure now as ever formed part of the love-scene. Eager on this occasion to please him, she stopped, saying, ‘Wait a minute,’ took the flowers herself, dismissed the servant, and they went on all alone along the winding walk. But in spite of this kindness, Paul’s brow did not relax; and, as he had hung upon his free arm three or four rings of violets, immortelles, and lilac, he felt more angry with the deceased than ever. ‘You shall pay me for this,’ was his savage reflection. She, on the contrary, felt singularly happy, in that vivid consciousness of life and health which comes upon us in places of death. Perhaps it was the warmth of the day, the perfume of the flowers, mixing their fragrance with the stronger scent of the yews and the box trees and the moist earth steaming in the sun, and with another yet, an acrid, faint, and penetrating scent, which she knew well, but which, to-day, instead of revolting her senses, as usual, seemed rather to intoxicate them.
Suddenly a shiver passed over her. The hand which lay on the young man’s arm was suddenly grasped in his, grasped with force and held tight, held as it were in an embrace, and the little hand dared not take itself away. The fingers of his hand were trying to get between the delicate fingers of hers and take possession of it altogether. Hers resisted, trying to clench itself in the glove by way of refusal. All the time they went on walking, arm in arm, neither speaking nor looking, but much moved, resistance, according to the natural law, exciting the relative desire. At last came the surrender; the little hand opened, and their fingers joined in a clasp which parted their gloves, for one exquisite moment of full avowal and complete possession. The next minute the woman’s pride awoke. She wanted to speak, to show that she was mistress of herself, that she had no part in what was done, nor knowledge of it at all. Finding nothing to say, she read aloud the epitaph on a tomb lying flat among the weeds, ‘Augusta, 1847,’ and he continued, under his breath, ‘A love-story, no doubt.’ Overhead the thrushes and finches uttered their strident notes, not unlike the sounds of the stone-cutting, which were heard uninterruptedly in the distance.
They were now entering the Twentieth Division, the part of the cemetery which may be called its ‘old town,’ where the paths are narrower, the trees higher, the tombs closer together, a confused mass of ironwork, pillars, Greek temples, pyramids, angels, genii, busts, wings open and wings folded. The tombs were various as the lives now hidden beneath—commonplace, odd, original, simple, forced, pretentious, modest. In some the floor-stones were freshly cleaned and loaded with flowers, memorials, and miniature gardens of a Chinese elegance in littleness. In others the mossy slabs were mouldering or parting, and were covered with brambles and high weeds. But all bore well-known names, names distinctly Parisian, names of lawyers, judges, merchants of eminence, ranged here in rows as in the haunts of business and trade. There were even double names, standing for family partnerships in capital and connection, substantial signatures, known no more to the directory or the bank ledger, but united for ever upon the tomb. And Madame de Rosen remarked them with the same tone of surprise, almost of pleasure, with which she would have bowed to a carriage in the Park, ‘Ah! the So-and-So’s! Mario? was that the singer?’ and so forth, all by way of seeming not to know that their hands were clasped.
But presently the door of a tomb near them creaked, and there appeared a large lady in black, with a round fresh face. She carried a little watering-pot, and was putting to rights the flower-beds, oratory, and tomb generally, as calmly as if she had been in a summer-house. She nodded to them across the Enclosure with a kindly smile of unselfish good will, which seemed to say, ‘Use your time, happy lovers; life is short, and nothing good but love.’ A feeling of embarrassment unloosed their hands. The spell was broken, and the Princess, with a sort of shame, led the way across the tombs, taking the quickest and shortest line to reach the mausoleum of the Prince.