The street was full of people, crowding sidewalks and pavement, edging about this way and that and talking in hushed voices. Most of them were dressed in black. A goodly number of military and naval men in parade uniform were standing to one side, grouped around some higher officers whose plumes I could distinguish over the heads of the throng. Among them a tall impressive personage, with a grand cordon on his breast. A noble face of regular outlines! Ah yes! My admiral, the governor! Vice-Admiral de Fierce!
A Cross, with priests behind it. The red cauls of the choir boys stand out against the surplices and albs of white and gold. A canon’s gown is fidgeting nervously about in the company of clergy....
Farther on, a squad of colonial troops, drawn up in line, their guns at rest.... They are waiting for something, apparently....
Spectators looking on from the windows and down from the roofs and balconies of the houses.... Flocks of urchins climbing pillars and posts, seeking points of vantage.... But there is no laughing nor shouting. The crowd is in a serious, earnest mood, or is trying to seem so.
All eyes are on the door of my house, which is heavily draped in mourning. A shield of velvet has been set up above the casing and on it I can read two initials in silver: A. N. Of course: A. N.: André Narcy! That’s what they must stand for.
Of course! I understand! My funeral! Of course!
Here is the hearse, slowly drawing up as the crowd divides before it. The horses are heavily caparisoned; on the four ebony columns that adorn the coffin-rest, four heavy plumes are waving. And oh, how many wreathes! Ten, twenty, thirty of them I can count, all of them bedecked with the tricolor of my country! On each an inscription in letters of gold. I cannot read them at this distance. Perhaps, later, when they pass this way....
Ah!... What’s the matter now? The crowd is all astir.... They are probably bringing out the body.... Yes, there it is ... the hooded bearers are coming down from the front door. How fast they walk! Not much of a load after all.... I rise on tip-toe to see better.... My coffin is of the flat topped kind common in the South of France! The wood cannot be seen. They have draped it in a heavy cloth.... Here are some other men in hoods.... They go up to the hearse and place on my coffin a military cloak of mine—light blue—then a cavalry sabre, with its scabbard; and these clink as they are laid one across the other. Of course ... that’s the custom at military funerals ... my uniform and my sword! I suppose my Distinguished Service Cross is there.... I cannot see it.... There is hardly time to look at everything.... For ... something else I see ... yes ... with those other eyes of mine, those moving unfailing eyes that can see through walls, and rocks, and trees.... They can see just as well through the boards of a coffin.... Yes, I see, I see perfectly well!
Oh! Oh! Oh! What horror! What horror!
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