I entered the keeper's lodge, and asked him if on the 22nd of February
a woman named Marguerite Gautier had not been buried in the Montmartre
Cemetery. He turned over the pages of a big book in which those who
enter this last resting-place are inscribed and numbered, and replied
that on the 22nd of February, at 12 o'clock, a woman of that name had
been buried.
I asked him to show me the grave, for there is no finding one's way
without a guide in this city of the dead, which has its streets like a
city of the living. The keeper called over a gardener, to whom he gave
the necessary instructions; the gardener interrupted him, saying:
"I know, I know.--It is not difficult to find that grave," he added,
turning to me.
"Why?"
"Because it has very different flowers from the others."
"Is it you who look after it?"
"Yes, sir; and I wish all relations took as much trouble about the dead
as the young man who gave me my orders."
After several turnings, the gardener stopped and said to me: "Here we
are."
I saw before me a square of flowers which one would never have taken for
a grave, if it had not been for a white marble slab bearing a name.
The marble slab stood upright, an iron railing marked the limits of the
ground purchased, and the earth was covered with white camellias. "What
do you say to that?" said the gardener.
"It is beautiful."
"And whenever a camellia fades, I have orders to replace it."
"Who gave you the order?"
"A young gentleman, who cried the first time he came here; an old pal
of hers, I suppose, for they say she was a gay one. Very pretty, too, I
believe. Did you know her, sir?" "Yes."
"Like the other?" said the gardener, with a knowing smile. "No, I never
spoke to her."
"And you come here, too! It is very good of you, for those that come to
see the poor girl don't exactly cumber the cemetery."
"Doesn't anybody come?"
"Nobody, except that young gentleman who came once."
"Only once?"
"Yes, sir."
"He never came back again?"
"No, but he will when he gets home."
"He is away somewhere?"
"Yes."
"Do you know where he is?"
"I believe he has gone to see Mlle. Gautier's sister."