everything in the world to divert myself
and to heal myself."

A. DE MUSSET (_Confession d'un enfant du Siècle_).

One night he went out by stealth, crossed the market-place, and descended
the hill. He had the look of a man who was hiding himself, and he went back
several times, as if he was afraid of being followed. He reached the
cemetery, took a key from his pocket, cautiously opened the gate and closed
it behind him. At the bottom of the principal path there was a little
chapel which served for an ossuary. In it was a hideous accumulation of the
remains of several generations. The cemetery was becoming too full and it
had been necessary to make room. Here as elsewhere the cry was: "Room for
the young." And it is only justice. What would become of as if all the old
remained? There is overcrowding under ground as there is above. "Keep off!
Keep off!" Therefore their ancestors' bones were in the way, and they had
cast them into this retreat to wait for the common grave. But the common
grave is again a place which must be taken, and the recent gluttonous dead
want everything. "Keep off! Keep off!" Let us not say anything ourselves,
perhaps they will dispute with us the corner of ground which should shelter
our bones!

Marcel went into the gloomy chapel; he lighted a dark lantern and began to
search among the pile.

Then he returned to the parsonage like a thief, afraid of being caught, and
shut himself up in his room.

He had a parcel under his arm; he opened it and, carefully placing its
contents on the table, he sat down in front of it and contemplated it for a