And I went myself to look for the woollen dress which she had worn the day of our betrothal—which I had one day ridiculed. Luxury had killed her. It should not constrain her in her tomb. She had come to me in all simplicity, and I had not understood her. I myself had crushed her.
They were astonished at my choice.
“No, please,” I said. “She would have wanted this one. We must do as she would have liked.”
* * *
Oh, my love, whom I so cruelly tortured, even in Death you bear within you that peace which, living, you held out to me with expiating hands.
PART III
THE FACE OF THE WORLD CHANGES
I HAD spent almost the entire night reading the two notebooks which Raymond Cernay had entrusted to me. It was nearly dawn when I lay down for a few hours. As soon as I had risen, I went to find my friend.
He was seated at his table, in the same place where I had surprised him the previous night. But what a change had come over him! Instead of the over-excitement and the melancholy tension which had been almost killing him, instead of fatigue intensified by lack of sleep and mental strain, he now exhibited such tranquillity and self-control that I stopped, stupefied, in my offer of sympathy. I had left him in despair, and now I found him smiling.
“Here,” I said to him, handing him his notebooks. “I understand you now.”
Already, however, I was beginning not to understand him. By a new move, the trend of which escaped me, he had re-established between us the distance which his confidence had seemed to wipe out. I came to him, disturbed by what I had read, and he received me with indifference! I might have connected his attitude with the last sentence of his journal, but not yet had I reached that state of composure which enables us to rise above sorrow.