eneath a slab, where I should soon rejoin them.
It was said that, at Toulouse, a large number of bodies carried down the
stream, had been taken from the water. I decided to make the trip.

What a terrible disaster! Nearly two thousand houses in ruins; seven
hundred deaths; all the bridges carried away; a whole district razed,
buried in the mud; atrocious tragedies; twenty thousand half-clad
wretches starving to death; the city in a pestilential condition;
mourning everywhere; the streets filled with funeral processions;
financial aid powerless to heal the wounds! But I walked through it all
without seeing anything. I had my ruins, I had my dead, to crush me.

I was told that many of the bodies had been buried in trenches in a
corner of the cemetery. Only, they had had the forethought to photograph
the unidentified. And it was among these lamentable photographs that I
found Gaspard and Veronique. They had been clasped passionately in
each other's arms, exchanging in death their bridal kiss. It had been
necessary to break their arms in order to separate them. But, first,
they had been photographed together; and they sleep together beneath the
sod.

I have nothing but them, the image of those two handsome children;
bloated by the water, disfigured, retaining upon their livid faces the
heroism of their love. I look at them, and I weep.

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