Fromont and Risler, Alphonse Daudet [epub e ink reader txt] 📗

fell in the shroud-like folds which all draperies assume that come in contact with the rigidity of death. A group of officers and several soldiers in duck trousers were looking on at a distance, whispering as if in a church; and an assistant-surgeon was writing a report of the death on a high window-ledge. To him Sigismond spoke.
"I should like very much to see him," he said softly.
"Go and look."
He walked to the table, hesitated a minute, then, summoning courage, uncovered a swollen face, a tall, motionless body in its rain-soaked garments.
"She has killed you at last, my old comrade!" murmured Planus, and fell on his knees, sobbing bitterly.
The officers had come forward, gazing curiously at the body, which was left uncovered.
"Look, surgeon," said one of them. "His hand is closed, as if he were holding something in it."
"That is true," the surgeon replied, drawing nearer. "That sometimes happens in the last convulsions.
"You remember at Solferino, Commandant Bordy held his little daughter's miniature in his hand like that? We had much difficulty in taking it from him."
As he spoke he tried to open the poor, tightly-closed dead hand.
"Look!" said he, "it is a letter that he is holding so tight."
He was about to read it; but one of the officers took it from his hands and passed it to Sigismond, who was still kneeling.
"Here, Monsieur. Perhaps you will find in this some last wish to be carried out."
Sigismond Planus rose. As the light in the room was dim, he walked with faltering step to the window, and read, his eyes filled with tears:
"Well, yes, I love you, I love you, more than ever and forever! What is the use of struggling and fighting against fate? Our sin is stronger than we..."
It was the letter which Frantz had written to his sister-in-law a year before, and which Sidonie had sent to her husband on the day following their terrible scene, to revenge herself on him and his brother at the same time.
Risler could have survived his wife's treachery, but that of his brother had killed him.
When Sigismond understood, he was petrified with horror. He stood there, with the letter in his hand, gazing mechanically through the open window.
The clock struck six.
Yonder, over Paris, whose dull roar they could hear although they could not see the city, a cloud of smoke arose, heavy and hot, moving slowly upward, with a fringe of red and black around its edges, like the powder-smoke on a field of battle. Little by little, steeples, white buildings, a gilded cupola, emerged from the mist, and burst forth in a splendid awakening.
Then the thousands of tall factory chimneys, towering above that sea of clustered roofs, began with one accord to exhale their quivering vapor, with the energy of a steamer about to sail. Life was beginning anew. Forward, ye wheels of time! And so much the worse for him who lags behind!
Thereupon old Planus gave way to a terrible outburst of wrath.
"Ah! harlot-harlot!" he cried, shaking his fist; and no one could say whether he was addressing the woman or the city of Paris.
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Publication Date: 11-25-2009

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