y will bring him the melancholy voluptuousness of far-away horizons
and the caressing touch of the sea-breeze. And while time passes and the
waves of his native strand swing back and forth between his cradle and
his grave, the great heart of Rene, grown cold, will slowly crumble to
dust to the eternal rhythm of this never-ceasing music.

We walked around the tomb and touched it, and looked at it as if it
contained its future host, and sat down beside it on the ground.

The sky was pink, the sea was calm, and there was a lull in the breeze.
Not a ripple broke the motionless surface of ocean on which the setting
sun shed its golden light. Blue near the coast and mingled with the
evening mist, the sea was scarlet everywhere else and deepened into a
dark red line on the horizon. The sun had no rays left; they had fallen
from its face and drowned their brilliancy in the water, on which they
seemed to float. The red disc set slowly, robbing the sky of the pink
tinge it had diffused over it, and while both the sun and the delicate
color were wearing away, the pale blue shades of night crept over the
heavens. Soon the sun touched the ocean and sank into it to the middle.
For a moment it appeared cut in two by the horizon; the upper half
remained firm, while the under one vacillated and lengthened; then it
finally disappeared; and when the reflection died away from the place
where the fiery ball had gone down, it seemed as if a sudden gloom had
spread over the sea.

The shore was dark. The light in one of the windows in a city house,
which a moment before was bright, presently went out. The silence grew
deeper, though sounds could be heard. The breakers dashed against the
rocks and fell back with a roar; long-legged gnats sang in our ears and
disappeared with a buzzing of their transparent wings, and the
indistinct voices of the children bathing at the foot of the ramparts
reached us, mingled with their laughter and screams.

Young boys came out of the water, and, stepping gingerly on the pebbles,
ran up the beach to dress. When they attempted to put on their shirts,
the moist linen clung to their wet shoulders and we could see their
white torsos wriggling with impatience, while their heads and arms
remained concealed and the sleeves flapped in the wind like flags.

A man with his wet hair falling straight around his neck, passed in
front of us. His dripping body shone. Drops trickled from his dark,
curly beard, and he shook