"How you made me jump, monsieur," said the grave-digger.
"Was any service held over the body you are burying?"
"No, monsieur. Monsieur le cure wasn't willing. This is the first
person buried here who didn't belong to the parish. Everybody knows
everybody else in this place. Does monsieur--Why, he's gone!"
Some days had elapsed when a man dressed in black called at the house
of Monsieur Jules Desmarets, and without asking to see him carried up
to the chamber of his wife a large porphyry vase, on which were
inscribed the words:--
INVITA LEGE
CONJUGI MOERENTI
FILIOLAE CINERES
RESTITUIT
AMICIS XII. JUVANTIBUS
MORIBUNDUS PATER.
"What a man!" cried Jules, bursting into tears.
Eight days sufficed the husband to obey all the wishes of his wife,
and to arrange his own affairs. He sold his practice to a brother of
Martin Falleix, and left Paris while the authorities were still
discussing whether it was lawful for a citizen to dispose of the body
of his wife.
* * * * *
Who has not encountered on the boulevards of Paris, at the turn of a
street, or beneath the arcades of the Palais-Royal, or in any part of
the world where chance may offer him the sight, a being, man or woman,
at whose aspect a thousand confused thoughts spring into his mind? At
that sight we are suddenly interested, either by features of some
fantastic conformation which reveal an agitated life, or by a singular
effect of the whole person, produced by gestures, air, gait, clothes;
or by some deep, intense look; or by other inexpressible signs which
seize our minds suddenly and forcibly without our being able to
explain even to ourselves the cause of our emotion.
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