Well, he was there; the tomb was before his eyes and still, they were
dry; they looked about coldly in surprise.
She was there! He knew it from his friend's statement, from the
declamatory inscription on the tomb, but nothing warned him of her
presence. He remained indifferent, looking curiously at the adjoining
graves, filled with a monstrous desire to laugh, seeing in death only
his sardonic buffoon's mask.
At one side, a gentleman who rested under the endless list of his titles
and honors, a sort of Count of Alberca, who had fallen asleep in the
solemnity of his greatness, waiting for the angel's trumpet-blast to
appear before the Lord with all his parchments and crosses. On the
other, a general who rotted under a marble slab, engraved with cannon,
guns and banners, as though he hoped to terrify death. In what ludicrous
promiscuity Josephina had come to sleep her last sleep, mingled with,
forms she had not known in life! They were her eternal, her final
lovers; they carried her off from his very presence and forever,
indifferent to the pressing concerns of the living. Oh, Death! What a
cruel mocker! The earth! How cold and cynical!
He was sad and disgusted at human insignificance--but he did not weep.
He saw only the external and material--the form, always the concern of
his thoughts. Standing before the tomb he felt merely his vulgar
meanness, with a sort of shame. She was his wife; the wife of a great
artist.
He thought of the most famous sculptors, all friends of his; he would
talk to them, they should erect an imposing sepulcher with weeping
statues, symbolical of fidelity, gentleness and love, a sepulcher worthy
of the companion of Renovales.
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