there, imparted to that vast field of repose a look of poverty and cold, clean, dismal bareness like that of a barracks or a hospital.  There was not a corner to be found recalling the graveyard nooks sung of in the ballads of the romantic period, not one leafy turn quivering with mystery, not a single large tomb speaking of pride and eternity.  You were in the new style of Paris cemetery, where everything is set out straight and duly numbered—­the cemetery of democratic times, where the dead seem to slumber at the bottom of an office drawer, after filing past one by one, as people do at a fete under the eyes of the police, so as to avoid obstruction.

‘Dash it!’ muttered Bongrand, ‘it isn’t lively here.’

‘Why not?’ asked Sandoz.  ’It’s commodious; there is plenty of air.  And even although there is no sun, see what a pretty colour it all has.’

In fact, under the grey sky of that November morning, in the penetrating quiver of the wind, the low tombs, laden with garlands and crowns of beads, assumed soft tints of charming delicacy.  There were some quite white, and others all black, according to the colour of the beads.  But the contrast lost much of its force amid the pale green foliage of the dwarfish trees.  Poor families exhausted their affection for the dear departed in decking those five-year grants; there were piles of crowns and blooming flowers—­freshly brought there on the recent Day of the Dead.  Only the cut flowers had as yet faded, between their paper collars.  Some crowns of yellow immortelles shone out like freshly chiselled gold.  But the beads predominated to such a degree that at the first glance there seemed to be nothing else; they gushed forth everywhere, hiding the inscriptions and covering the stones and railings.  There were beads forming hearts, beads in festoons and medallions, beads framing either ornamental designs or objects under glass, such as velvet pansies, wax hands entwined, satin bows, or, at times, even photographs of women—­yellow, faded, cheap photographs, showing poor, ugly, touching faces that smiled awkwardly.

As the hearse proceeded along the Avenue du Rond Point, Sandoz, whose last remark—­since it was of an artistic nature—­had brought him back to Claude, resumed the conversation, saying: 

’This is a cemetery which he would have understood, he who was so mad on modern things.  No doubt he suffered physically, wasted away by the over-severe lesion that is so often akin to genius, “three grains too little, or three grains too much, of some substance in the brain,” as he himself said when he reproached his parents for his constitution.  However, his disorder was not merely a personal affair, he was the victim of our period.  Yes, our generation has been soaked in romanticism, and we have remained impregnated with it.  It is in vain that we wash ourselves and take baths of reality, the stain is obstinate, and all the scrubbing in the world won’t take it away.’