Wrap yourselves in this shroud which I extend towards
you! See! the deep and clear, the silent waves have prepared for us a
sandy couch from which no man shall wake us and tell us to be gone! No
human eye can see us. None will know from what mysterious cause the
empty bark has been washed ashore upon some rock. No ripple on these
waters will betray to the curious or the indifferent the spot where our
two bodies slid beneath the wave, in one embrace; where our two souls
rose mingled in the surrounding ether; no sound of earth will follow
us, but the slight ripple of the closing wave!... Oh, let us die in
this delight of soul, and feel of death only its entrancing joy. One
day we shall wish to die, and we shall die less happy. I am a few years
older than you, and this difference which is unfelt now will increase
with time. The little beauty which has attracted you will early fade,
and you will only recall with wonder the memory of your departed
enthusiasm. Besides, I am to you but as a spirit; ... you will seek
another happiness; ... I should die of jealousy if you found it with
another, ... and I should die of grief, if I saw you unhappy through
me!... Oh, let us die, let us die! Let us efface the dark or doubtful
future with one last sigh, which will only leave on our lips the
unallayed taste of complete felicity."

At the same moment my heart spoke to me as forcibly as she did, and
said what her voice said to my ear, what her looks said to my eyes,
what solemn, mute, funereal Nature in the splendor of her last hour,
said to all my senses. The two voices that I heard, the inward and the
outer voice, said the same words, as if one had been the echo or
translation of the other. I forgot the universe, and I answered, "Let
us die!"

* * * * *

I wound the fisherman's ropes which I found in the boat several times
round her body and mine, which were bound as in the same winding sheet.
I took her up in my arms, which I had left disengaged in order to
precipitate her with me into the lake.

At the very instant that I was taking the spring which would forever
have buried us in the waters, I saw her turn pale, her head drooped,
its lifeless weight sank upon my shoulder, and I felt her knees give
way beneath her body. Excessive emotion and the joy of dying together
had forestalled death. She had fainted in my arms. The idea of taking
advantage of her insensible state to hurry her, unknown to her