The narrator stopped, and then added:
“It was, perhaps, the best thing she could do
in her position. There are some things which
cannot be wiped out, and now you understand why the
clergy refused to have her taken into church.
Ah! If it had been a religious funeral, the whole
town would have been present, but you can understand
that her suicide added to the other affair, and made
families abstain from attending her funeral; and then,
it is not an easy matter, here, to attend a funeral
which is performed without religious rites.”
We passed through the cemetery gates and I waited,
much moved by what I had heard, until the coffin had
been lowered into the grave, before I went up to the
poor fellow who was sobbing violently, to press his
hand vigorously. He looked at me in surprise
through his tears, and then said:
“Thank you, Monsieur.” And I was
not sorry that I had followed the funeral.
The sky was blue, with light clouds that looked like
swans slowly sailing on the waters of a lake, and
the atmosphere was so warm, so saturated with the
subtle odors of the mimosas, that Madame de Viellemont
ordered coffee to be served on the terrace which overlooked
the sea.
And while the steam rose from the delicate china cups,
one felt an almost inexpressible pleasure in looking
at the sails, which were gradually becoming lost in
the mysterious distance, and at the almost motionless
sea, which had the sheen of jewels, which attracted
the eyes like the looks of a dreamy woman.
Monsieur de Pardeillac, who had arrived from Paris,
fresh from the remembrance of the last election there,
from that Carnival of variegated posters, which for
weeks had imparted the strange aspect of some Oriental
bazaar to the whole city, had just been relating the
victory of The General, and went on to say
that those who had thought that the game was lost,
were beginning to hope again.
After listening to him, old Count de Lancolme, who
had spent his whole life in rummaging libraries, and
who had certainly compiled more manuscripts than any
Benedectine friar, shook his bald head, and exclaimed
in his shrill, rather mocking voice:
“Will you allow me to tell you a very old story,
which has just come into my head, while you were speaking,
my dear friend, which I read formerly in an old Italian
city, though I forget at this moment where it was?
“It happened in the fifteenth century, which
is far removed from our epoch, but you shall judge
for yourselves whether it might not have happened
yesterday.
“Since the day, when mad with rage and rebellion,
the town had made a bonfire of the Ducal palace, and
had ignominiously expelled that patrician who had
been their podestat[23], as if he had been some
vicious scoundrel, had thrust his lovely daughter into
a convent, and had forced his sons, who might have
claimed their parental heritage, and have again imposed
the abhorred yoke upon them, into a monastery, the
town had never known any prosperous times. One
after another the shops closed, and money became as
scarce as if there had been an invasion of barbarian
hordes, who had emptied the State treasury, and stolen
the last gold coin.
