Chapter 24 Is this a dream?

I used to love her madly! Why does one fall in love?Why does one fall in love?He saw but one man in all the world, with one thought in his head, one desire in his heart, and one name on his lips—a name that kept coming up, like water from a spring, rising from the depths of his heart to his lips, He repeated the name over and over again, he kept whispering the name, wherever he was, he said it like a prayer.What a strange thing! I'm going to tell you our story because there's only one love and it's always the same.I met her, I was intoxicated in her arms, in the fragrance of her clothes, I was obsessed with her tenderness, her caress, and her words dominated my life.I was all in, all about her, all I could think of was her.I no longer cared whether it was day or night, whether I was dead or alive on our ancient earth.

Then, she died.what happened?I have no idea.I no longer know anything.One night, she came home dripping wet because it was raining heavily.The next day, she had a cough, and she coughed for about a week before being bedridden.What happened I don't remember now, but the doctor came, wrote a prescription, and left.The medicine was brought, and some women made her drink it.Her hands were hot, her forehead was hot, and her eyes were bright and sad.I spoke to her and she answered, but I don't remember what we said now.I've forgotten everything, everything, everything!She died, and I vividly remember her slight, feeble sigh.The nurse said: "Ah!" I see, I see!

I don't know anything anymore, I don't know anything anymore.I saw a priest who said, "Your lover?" It seemed to me that he was insulting her.Since she was dead, no one had the right to say that anymore, so I kicked him out.Another priest came and he was so kind and gracious that I shed tears when he told me about her. They consulted with me about the funeral, but I don't remember anything they said, though I can recall the coffin, and the sound of the hammer as they nailed her in.oh!God, God! she was buried!Buried!she!Buried in that pit!Some people came - female friends, I avoided and sneaked away.I ran, then crossed the street, went home, and started a trip the next day.

Yesterday, when I was back in Paris, I saw my room again—our room, our bed, our furniture, a person who dies with her life on everything.I was overwhelmed with grief again, and I wanted to open the window and jump out into the street.I can't stay in the middle of these things any longer.The walls, which had surrounded her and sheltered her, left in their tiny cracks the breath of her life, her skin, her breath.I put on my hat and started to run, and I went to the door, past the big mirror in the hall where she kept it so that when she went out every day, she could look at herself from head to toe and see herself Whether the dress looked good, whether it was decent, whether it was beautiful, she saw the hat from her little boots.

I paused briefly in front of the big mirror, how many times her image had been reflected in the mirror-how many times, how many times, it must have left an image of her, and I stood there, trembling, eyes fixed. Staring fixedly at the mirror—staring at that flat, deep, empty mirror that once reflected her from head to toe, that once had her as much as I did, like my passionate eyes.I feel like I'm falling in love with this mirror.I stroked it and it was cold.Oh, the memories!Sad mirror, burning mirror, terrible mirror, let people endure such torture!Forget everything you have ever had in your heart, forget everything you have felt in your heart, forget everything you have reflected in your heart, or forget everything reflected in its tenderness and love, such a person is happy!And how miserable I am!

Without knowing it, I walked out to the cemetery, without intending to do so myself.I found her modest tomb, a white marble cross inscribed with these words: She loved, was loved, and died. She's down there, rotting!how terrible!I sobbed and pressed my forehead to the ground, and I stayed there for a long, long time.Then, as I saw the sky grow darker, a strange and mad wish, the wish of a desperate lover, took hold of me.I want to pass this night, this last night, by mourning her with tears at her grave.But I will be seen, and I will be cast out.what should I do?I was cunning, I got up and started to roam around this city of the dead.I am walking, walking.how small one city looks in comparison with the other!Another city is where we live.However, there are countless more dead than living.We need high-rises, wide streets and more rooms, just for four generations who see daylight at the same time, drink water from bubbling springs, drink wine from wine-making vines, The bread we ate came from the fields that produced it.

And for all those people who died, there was nothing, nothing.The land took them back, and the river of forgetfulness drowned them.goodbye! At the end of the cemetery, I suddenly found myself in the oldest part of it, where those who died long ago have merged with the earth; where even the crosses have rotted; to be placed.There are untended roses everywhere, and thick, gloomy cypresses. —a miserable and beautiful garden, fed on human flesh. I was alone, completely alone.So I crouched under a green tree, and hid myself entirely in its thick, dark branches.I waited, clinging to the trunk like a shipwreck clinging to the planks.

When it was rather dark, I left my shelter and began to walk softly, slowly and noiselessly, through the place full of the dead.I've been looking around for a long time, but I can't find her grave anymore.I went on, stretching out my arms, beating on the grave with my hands, my feet, my knees, my chest, even my head, but I couldn't find her.I feel my way like a blind man.I touch stones, crosses, iron railings, metal wreaths and withered wreaths!I touched the letters with my fingers to distinguish the name of the owner of the tomb.What a night it was!What a night it was!I can never find her again!

no moon.What a night it was!I was terrified, scared out of my wits on those narrow paths between the rows of graves.grave!grave!grave!Nothing but graves!To my left, to my right, in front of me, all around me, there are graves everywhere!I sit on a grave because I can't walk anymore, my knees are all weak.I can hear my own heartbeat!I also heard other voices.what sound?A chaotic, indescribable sound.Is this voice in my head, in the unfathomable night, or under the mysterious land?The land is full of human corpses.I looked around, but I couldn't see how long I was there; I was so terrified that I couldn't move, I was so cold I wanted to cry, I wanted to die.

Suddenly, the marble slab on the tomb where I was sitting seemed to move.It was definitely moving, as if lifted.I jumped up and jumped onto the next tomb, and I saw, yes, I saw clearly that the stone I had just left stood vertically.Then the dead man appeared, a naked skeleton pushing back the stone with its bent back.I saw it quite clearly, though the night was so dark.On the cross I can see these words: Here lies the rest of Jacques Olivent, who died at the age of fifty-one.He loved his family, was kind and honest, and God graciously called him back. The dead man was also reading the words carved on the headstone.Then he picked up a rock from the path, a small, sharp-edged rock, and began scratching the letters carefully.It slowly erased them, and then, with its two empty eye sockets, it looked at the place where those words were engraved.Then, with the tip of the bone that had been his index finger, he wrote in glowing letters, like the lines boys write on walls with the point of a match rubbing:

Jacques Olivante is buried here, he died at the age of fifty-one.His ruthlessness hastened his father's death, because he wished to inherit his father's property; he tortured his wife, his children, deceived his neighbors, robbed everyone he could, and died poor. After writing, the dead man stood motionless, looking at his work.I turned around and saw that all the tombs were opened, and all the dead people came out of them, and all the people had erased the words written by their relatives on the headstones and replaced them with the real situation.I saw all who had tormented their neighbors—malicious, fraudulent, hypocrites, liars, rogues, slanderers, envious;These good fathers, these faithful wives, these dutiful sons, these chaste daughters, these honest merchants, these men and women who are called perfect.On the threshold of their eternal resting place, all at the same time wrote what was true, terrible and holy truths, facts which each man did not know or pretended not to know while he was alive. I think she must have written something on her headstone too; and now, running fearlessly among those half-open coffins, among the corpses and bones, I run to her, and of course I should immediately find her.I recognized her immediately without seeing her face, which was covered by the shroud.On the Marble Cross, I read not so long ago: She loved, was loved, and died. Now what I see is: She cheated on her lover and went to meet another man one day in the rain.She caught a cold and died. They found me at dawn, lying on the grave, unconscious.