Hello people, this is going to be my first post on nairaland, one of the stories of Guy de Maupassant, a very great French writer, I actually did copy one of his stories as I think it'll entertain many Nairalanders, it's going to be a really long short story, but please Enjoy.
Tbh I don't know how to use nairaland well, so I might just do everything wrongly, please Forgive. And if you happen to find this one interesting, I have a thousand more to share with you.



WAS IT A DREAM
_GUY DE MAUPASSANT













"I HAD loved her madly!
"why does one love? why does one Love? How queer it is to see only one being in the world, to have only one thought in one's mind, only one desire in the heart, and only one name on the lips_a name which comes up continually, rising, like the water in a spring, from the depths of the soul to the lips, a name which one repeats over and over again, which one whispers ceaselessly, everywhere, like a prayer.
"I am going to tell you our story, for love only has one, which is always the same. I met her and lived on her tenderness, on her caresses, in her arms, in her dresses, on her words, so completely wrapped up, bound, and absorbed in everything which came from her, that I no longer cared whether it was day or night, or whether I was dead or alive, on this old earth of ours.
"And then she died. How? I do not know; I no longer know anything. But one evening she came home wet, for it was raining heavily, and the next day she coughed, and she coughed for about a week, and took to her bed. What happened I do not remember now, but doctors came, wrote and went away. Medicines were brought, and some women made her drink them. Her hands were hot, her forehead was burning and her eyes bright and sad. When I spoke to her, she answered me, but I do not remember what she said. I have forgotten everything, everything, everything! she died, and I very well remember her slight, feeble sigh. The nurse said: 'Ah!' and I understood, I understood!
"I knew nothing more, nothing. I saw a priest, who said: 'Your mistress?' and it seemed to me as if he were insulting her. As she was dead, nobody had the right to say that any longer, and I turned him out. Another came who was very kind and tender, and I shed tears when he spoke to me about her.
"They consulted me about the Funeral, but I do not remember anything that they said, though I recollected the coffin, and the sound of the hammer when they nailed her down to it. Oh! God, God!
"She was buried! Buried! She! In that hole! some people came__female friends. I made my escape and ran away. I ran, and then walked through the streets, went home, and the next day started on a journey.
* * * * * * *
"Yesterday I returned to Paris, and when I saw my room again___ our room, our bed, our furniture, everything that remains of the life of a human being after death___ I was seized by such a violent attack of grief, that I felt like opening the window and throwing myself out into the street. I could not remain any longer among this things, between these walls which had inclosed and sheltered her, which retained a thousand atoms of her, of her skin and of her breath, in their imperceptible crevices. I took up my hat to make my escape, and just as I reached the door, I passed the large glass in the hall, which she had put there so that she might look at herself everyday from head to foot as she went out, to see if her toilette looked well and was correct and pretty from her little boots to her bonnet.
"I stopped short in front of that looking-glass in which she had so often be reflected__so often, so often that it must have retained Her reflection. I was standing there trembling with my eyes fixed on the glass___on that flat, profound, empty glass___which had contained her entirely, and had possessed her as much as I, as my passionate looks had. I felt as if I loved that glass. I touched it; it was cold. oh! the recollection! sorrowful mirror, burning mirror, horrible mirror, to make men suffer such torments! Happy is the man whose heart forgets everything that it has contained, everything that has passed before it, everything that has looked at itself in it, or has been reflected in its affection, in its love! How I suffer!
"I went out without knowing it, without wishing it, and toward the cemetery. I found her simple grave, a white marble cross, with these few words

" 'She loved, was loved and died.'

" She is there below, decayed! How horrible! I sobbed with my forehead on the ground, and I stopped there for a long time, a very long time. Then I saw that it was getting dark and a strange, mad wish, the wish of a despairing lover, seized me. I wished to pass the night, the last night in weeping on her grave. But I should be seen and driven out. How was I to manage? I was cunning and for up and began to roam about in that city of the dead. I walked and walked. How small this city is, in comparison with the other, the city in which we live. And yet, how much more numerous the dead are than the living. We want high houses, wide streets and much room for the four Generations who see the daylight at the same time, drink water from the spring, and wine from the vines, and eat bread from the plains.
"And for all the generations of the dead, for all the ladder of humanity that has descended down to us, there is scarcely anything, scarcely anything! The earth takes then back, and oblivion effaced them. Adieu!
"At the end of the cemetery, I suddenly perceived that I was in its oldest part, where those who had dead a long time are mingling with the soil, where the crosses themselves are decayed, where possibly newcomers will be put tomorrow. It is full of untended roses, of strong and dark cypress tress, a sad and beautiful garden nourished on human flesh.
"I was alone, Perfectly alone. So I crouched in a green tree and hit myself there completely amid the thick and somber branches. I waited, clinging to the storm, like a shipwrecked man does to a plank.
"When it was dark, I left my refuge and began to walk softly, slowly inaudibly through that ground full of dead people. I wandered about for a long time but could not find her tomb again. I went on with extended arms knocking against the tombs with my hands, my feet, my knees and my chest, even with my head, without being able to find her. I groped about like a blind man finding his way, I felt the stones, the crosses, the iron railings, the metal wreaths, and the wreaths of faded flowers! I read the names with my fingers, by passing them over the Letters. What a night! What a night! I could not find her again!
"There was no moon. What a night!
I was frightened, horribly frightened in these narrow paths, between two rows of graves. Graves! graves! graves! nothing but graves! on my right, on my left, in front of me, around me, everywhere there were graves! I sat down on one of them, for I could not walk any longer my knees were so weak. I could hear my heart beat! And I heard something else as well. What? A confused, nameless noise. was the noise in my head, in the impenetrable night, or beneath the mysterious earth, the earth sown with human corpses? I looked all around me, but I cannot say how long I remained there; I was paralyzed with terror, cold with fright, ready to shout out, ready to die.
"Suddenly, it seemed to me that the slab of marble on which I was sitting, was moving. Certainly it was moving, as if it were being raised. with a bound, I sprang on to the neighboring tomb, and I saw, yes, I distinctly saw the stone which I had just quitted rise upright. Then the dead person appeared, a naked skeleton, pushing the stone back with it's bent back. I saw it quite clearly, although the night was so dark. on the cross I could read

" ' Here lies Jacques Oliviant, who died at the age of fifty-one. He loved his family, was kind and honorable and died in the grace of the Lord.'

"The dead man also read what was inscribed on his tombstone; then he picked up a stone off the path, a little, pointed stone, and began to scrape the letters carefully, He slowly effaced them, and with the hollows of his eyes he looked at the places where they had been engraved. Then with the top of the bone that had been his forefinger, he wrote in Luminous Letters, like those lines which boys trace on walls with the tip of a lucifer match:

" 'Here reposes Jacques Oliviant, who died at the age of fifty-one. He hastened his father's death by his unkindness, as he wished to inherit his fortune, he tortured his wife, tormented his children, deceived his neighbors, robbed everyone he could and died wretched.'

"When he had finished writing, the dead man stood motionless, looking at his work. On turning round I saw that a the graves were open, that all the dead bodies had emerged from them, and that had effaced the lines inscribed on the gravestones by their relations substituting the truth instead. And I saw that all had add been the tormentors of their neighbors ___malucious, dishonest, hypocrites, liars, rogues, Calumniators, envious; that they had stolen, deceived, performed every disgraceful, every abominable action, these good fathers, these faithful wives, these devoted sons, these chaste daughters, these honest tradesmen, these men and women who were irreproachable. They were all writing at the same time, on the threshold of their external abode, the truth, the terrible and holy truth of which everybody was ignorant, while they were alive.
"I thought that she also must have written something on her tombstone, and now running without any fear among the half-open coffins, among the corpses and skeletons, I went towards her, sure that I should find her immediately. I recognized her face, which was covered by the winding-sheet, and on the marble cross, where shortly before I had read:

"She loved, was loved, and died. '

I now saw:

"Having gone out in the rain one day, in order to deceive her lover, she caught cold and died.'

* * * * * * *

"It appears that they found me at daybreak, lying on the grave unconscious. "