We buried him in the little cemetery at Méricourt one Sunday morning.
It is the ideal cemetery of the poets, hidden in green from every sound. Each grave seems alone in a thicket of lilacs and honeysuckle. No scientific gardening here; no trees butchered by experts; no cultivated flowers; no bombastic marbles. The grass overruns the paths; the simple flowers of the field have blossomed on the graves, thus bringing in every season the natural homage which returning life pays to the dead.
Nature is pleased to shut every sound from this field of rest.
At the end of a lane, at the foot of a willow, we lay Hémin to rest in his last sleep.
The men of the echelon come, the major, a captain, and the officers who knew him particularly well. The intelligence officers of the three companies joined in buying a wreath and came to the services together.
Hémin’s captain speaks a few words. It is not the time for a long talk, for a simple touching farewell is sufficient.
And before he goes each one throws in the grave the symbolic bit of earth.
Sad duty!
Before the grave is filled in I drop over him petals of peonies....
Poor fellow! He is not the most unfortunate. He is in that luminous land of day and knows what we are powerless to know. He has finished with our poor human troubles, and on him have fallen the curtains of his last resting place.