They began to talk.
"You are her son?" said the man.
"She had three," said Christophe.
"I mean the one at Hamburg. The other two turned out badly."
Christophe sat still with his head thrown back a little, and said nothing. The sun was setting.
"I'm going to lock up," said the custodian.
Christophe got up and walked slowly round the cemetery with him. The custodian did the honors of the place. Christophe stopped every now and then to read the names carved on the gravestones. How many of those he knew were of that company! Old Euler,—his son-in-law,—and farther off, the comrades of his childhood, little girls with whom he had played, —and there, a name which stirred his heart: Ada…. Peace be with all of them….
The fiery rays of the setting sun put a girdle round the calm horizon. Christophe left the cemetery. He went for a long walk through the fields. The stars were peeping….
Next day he came again, and once more spent the afternoon at his vigil. But the fair silent calm of the day before was broken and thrilling with life. His heart sang a careless, happy hymn. He sat on the curb of the grave, and set down the song he heard in pencil in a notebook resting on his knees. So the day passed. It seemed to him that he was working in his old little room, and that his mother was there on the other side of the partition. When he had finished and was ready to go—he had moved a little away from the grave,—he changed his mind and returned, and buried the notebook in the grass under the ivy. A few drops of rain were beginning to fall. Christophe thought:
"It will soon be blotted out. So much the better!… For you alone. For nobody else."