to bury them beneath 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.