ce had led them back, while they talked, towards
the place of sepulture of the Moras, on the summit of an open plateau
from which they could see, above myriads of crowded roofs, Montmartre
and Les Buttes Chaumont in the distance like vague white billows. These,
with the hill of Pere-Lachaise, accurately represented the three
undulations, following one another at equal intervals, of which each
forward impulse of the sea consists at flood tide. In the hollows
between, lights were already twinkling, like ship's lanterns, through
the ascending purple haze; chimneys towered aloft like masts or funnels
of steamers belching forth smoke; and whirling it all about in its
undulating motion, the Parisian ocean seemed to be bringing it nearer to
the dark shore in successive series of three bounds, each time less
energetic than the last. The sky had become much brighter, as it often
does toward the close of rainy days, a boundless sky, tinged with the
hues of dawn, against which, upon the family tomb of the Moras, four
allegorical figures stood forth, imploring, contemplative, pensive, the
dying day exaggerating the sublimity of their attitudes. Naught remained
of the orations, the perfunctory official condolences. The trampled
grass all around, masons occupied in washing the spots of plaster from
the threshold, were all that recalled the recent interment.

Suddenly the door of the ducal cavern closed in all its metallic
ponderosity. Thenceforth the former minister of State was alone, quite
alone, in the darkness of his night, more dense than that just creeping
up from the garden below, invading the winding avenues, the stairways
surrounding the bases of columns, pyramids, crypts of every kind, whose
summits died more slowly. Gravediggers, all white with the chalky
whiteness of dried bones, passed with their tools and their baskets.
Stealthy mourners, tearing themselves away regretfully from tears and
prayer, crept along the hedges, brushing them in their silent flight,
like the flight of night-birds, while on the outskirts of Pere-Lachaise
voices arose, melancholy voices announcing the hour for closing. The
cemetery day was done. The city of the dead, given back to nature,
became an immense forest with cross-roads marked by crosses. In the
heart of a valley lights shone in the windows of a keeper's house. A
shiver ran through the air and lost itself in whisperings at the end of
interlaced paths.

"Let us go," said the two old comr