“Leaped!” Then the interesting accident was described. A man had jumped down from the top of the monument. They often did it.
We ought to have been shocked. But the absurdity of the misunderstanding, the man’s dramatic enjoyment of the situation, and his manner of communicating the news, rather tempted us to amusement.
“Ah! without doubt, Madame! The colonne has one hundred and fifty-two feet of height. Perfectly killed, Monsieur!”
Impelled by a wicked spirit of perversity, or a more complex caprice, I offered another query:
“What do you suppose he thought of while falling?”
“Ah, Madame! of nothing! One never thinks at such a moment. _Ma foi!_ why should he? He will be out of being—_rien_—in ten seconds. He has no more use for thought. Why think?”
We declined to inspect the stone on which the suicide’s head had struck. Indeed, assented our _cocher_, where was the use? The body had been removed immediately, and the pavement washed. The police would look to that. Monsieur would see only a wet spot. The wind would soon dry it. Ah! they were skilful (_habile_) in such accident at the monument. If a man were weary of life, there was no better place for him—and no noise made about it afterward.
“Somehow,” said Prima, presently, “I cannot feel that a Frenchman’s soul is as valuable as ours. They make so light of life and death, and as for Eternity, they resolve it into, as that man said—‘nothing.’”
“‘He giveth to all life and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood all nations of men,’” I quoted, gravely.
I would not admit, unless to myself, that the coachman’s talk of the wet spot upon the pavement and the significant gesture of blowing away a gas, or scent, that had accompanied his “Nothing,” brought to my imagination the figure of a broken phial of spirits of hartshorn—pungent, volatile—_rien_!
On another windy morning we made one of our favorite “Variety Excursions.” We had spent the previous day at the Louvre, and eyes and minds needed rest. I have seen people who could visit this mine of richest art for seven and eight consecutive days, without suffering from exhaustion or plethora. Three hours at a time insured for me a sleepless night, or dreams thronged with travesties of the beauty in which I had reveled in my waking hours. Instead then, of entering the Louvre on the second day, we checked the carriage on the opposite side of the street before the church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois.