He stopped to take breath, unable to go any farther. He had expended more steps and more words in an hour than he usually did in a year. They noticed then that chance had led them back, while they talked, towards the place of sepulture of the Moras, on the summit of an open plateau from which they could see, above myriads of crowded roofs, Montmartre and Les Buttes Chaumont in the distance like vague white billows. These, with the hill of Père-Lachaise, accurately represented the three undulations, following one another at equal intervals, of which each forward impulse of the sea consists at flood tide. In the hollows between, lights were already twinkling, like ship's lanterns, through the ascending purple haze; chimneys towered aloft like masts or funnels of steamers belching forth smoke; and whirling it all about in its undulating motion, the Parisian ocean seemed to be bringing it nearer to the dark shore in successive series of three bounds, each time less energetic than the last. The sky had become much brighter, as it often does toward the close of rainy days, a boundless sky, tinged with the hues of dawn, against which, upon the family tomb of the Moras, four allegorical figures stood forth, imploring, contemplative, pensive, the dying day exaggerating the sublimity of their attitudes. Naught remained of the orations, the perfunctory official condolences. The trampled grass all around, masons occupied in washing the spots of plaster from the threshold, were all that recalled the recent interment.
Suddenly the door of the ducal cavern closed in all its metallic ponderosity. Thenceforth the former minister of State was alone, quite alone, in the darkness of his night, more dense than that just creeping up from the garden below, invading the winding avenues, the stairways surrounding the bases of columns, pyramids, crypts of every kind, whose summits died more slowly. Gravediggers, all white with the chalky whiteness of dried bones, passed with their tools and their baskets. Stealthy mourners, tearing themselves away regretfully from tears and prayer, crept along the hedges, brushing them in their silent flight, like the flight of night-birds, while on the outskirts of Père-Lachaise voices arose, melancholy voices announcing the hour for closing. The cemetery day was done. The city of the dead, given back to nature, became an immense forest with cross-roads marked by crosses. In the heart of a valley lights shone in the windows of a keeper's house. A shiver ran through the air and lost itself in whisperings at the end of interlaced paths.
"Let us go," said the two old comrades, yielding gradually to the influence of the twilight, which seemed colder there than elsewhere; but, before they turned away, Hemerlingue, following out his thought, pointed to the monument, with the draperies and outstretched hands of the carved figures like wings at the four corners:
"There was a man who understood all about keeping up appearances."
Jansoulet took his arm to assist him in the descent.
"Oh! yes, he was strong. But you are stronger than anybody else," he said in his fervid Gascon accent.
Hemerlingue did not protest.
"I owe it all to my wife. So I urge you to make your peace with her, because if you don't—"
"Oh! never fear—we will come Saturday; but you will go with me to Le Merquier."
And as the two silhouettes, one tall and square-shouldered, the other short and stout, disappeared in the windings of the great labyrinth, as Jansoulet's voice, guiding his friend, with a "This way, old fellow—lean on me," gradually died away, a stray beam of the setting sun fell upon the plateau behind them, and lighted the colossal bust of Balzac looking after them with its expressive face, its noble brow from which the long hair was brushed back, its powerful and sarcastic lip.