She took it—she who had given it as her first love-gift. She was mute. In the glare of the flame that quivered through the darkness I saw her—standing quite erect and very still.
The voice of a stranger thrilled through the din from the world above.
“He fought as only patriots can,” it said softly and as through tears. “I was beside him. He fell with Regnault in the sortie yesterday. He could not speak; he had only strength to give me this for you. Be comforted; he has died for Paris.”
On Lili’s face there came once more the radiance of a perfect peace, a glory pure and endless as the glory of the sun. “Great in death!” she murmured. “My love, my love, I come!”
I lost her in the darkness.
I heard a voice above me say that life had left her lips as the dead rose touched them.
What more is there for me to tell?
I live, since to breathe, and to feel pain, and to desire vainly, and to suffer always, are surest proofs of life.
I live, since that stranger’s hand, which brought my little dead blossom as the message of farewell, had pity on me and brought me away from that living grave. But the pity was vain; I died the only death that had any power to hurt me when the human heart I loved grew still forever.
The light of the full day now shines on me; the shadows are cool, the dews are welcome; they speak around me of the coming of spring, and in the silence of the dawns I hear from the woods without the piping of the nesting birds; but for me the summer can never more return—for me the sun can never again be shining—for me the greenest garden world is barren as a desert.