“A strange emotion seized me. To whom had this belonged? When? Under what circumstances? Why had this hair been shut up in this piece of furniture? What adventure, what drama was hidden beneath this souvenir? Who had cut it off? Some lover, on a day of parting? Some husband, on a day of vengeance? Or, perhaps, the woman herself, whose hair it was, on a day of despair? Was it at the hour of entering the cloister that she had thrown there this fortune of love, as a token left to the world of the living? Was it the hour of closing the tomb upon the young and beautiful dead, that he who adored her took this diadem of her head, the only thing he could preserve of her, the only living part of her body that would not perish, the only thing that he could still love and caress and kiss, in the transport of his grief?
“Was it not strange that this hair should remain there thus, when there was no longer any vestige of the body with which it was born?
“It curled about my fingers and touched my skin with a singular caress, the caress of death. I felt myself affected, as if I were going to weep.
“I kept it a long time in my hands, then it seemed to me that it had some effect upon me, as if something of the soul still remained in it. And I laid it upon the velvet again, the velvet blemished by time, then pushed in the drawer, shut the doors of the closet, and betook myself to the street to dream.
“I walked straight ahead, full of sadness, and full of trouble, of the kind of trouble that remains in the heart after the kiss of love. It seemed to me I had lived in former times, and that I had known this woman.
“And Villon’s lines rose to my lips, like a sob:
Dictes-moy où, ne en quel pays
Est Flora, la belle Romaine,
Archipiada, ne Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine?
Echo parlant quand bruyt on maine
Dessus rivière, ou sus estan;
Qui beauté eut plus que humaine?
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?
⋮
La royne blanche comme un lys
Qui chantoit à voix de sereine,
Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys,
Harembouges qui tint le Mayne,
Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine
Que Anglais bruslèrent à Rouen?
Où sont-ils, Vierge souveraine?
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?18
“When I returned to my house I felt an irresistible desire to see my strange treasure again. I took it up and felt it, and in touching it a prolonged thrill ran through my body.
“For some days, however, I remained in my ordinary state, although the thought of this hair never left me. Whenever I came in, it was my first desire to look at it and handle it. I would turn the key of the desk with the same trembling that one has in opening the door of one’s mistress, for I felt in my hands and in my heart a confused, singular, continual, sensual desire to bury my fingers in this charming rivulet of dead hair.
“Then, when I had finished caressing it, when I had returned it to its resting-place, I always felt that it was there, as if it were something alive, concealed, imprisoned; I felt it and I still desired it; again I felt the imperious need of touching it, of feeling it, of enervating myself to the point of weakness, by contact with this cold, smooth, irritating, exciting, delicious hair.
“I lived thus for a month or two, I no longer know how long, with this thing possessing me, haunting me. I was happy and tortured, as in the expectation of love, as one is after the avowal which precedes the embrace.
“I would shut myself up alone with it in order to feel it upon my skin, to bury my lips in it, to kiss it, and bite it. I would roll it around my face, drink it in, drown my eyes in its golden waves, in order to see life golden through it.
“I loved it! Yes, I loved it. I could no longer live away from it, nor be contented an hour without seeing it. I expected—I expected—what? I know not—her!
“One night I was suddenly awakened with a feeling that I was not alone in my room. I was alone, however. But I could not go to sleep again; and, as I was tossing in the fever of insomnia, I rose and went to look at the twist of hair. It appeared to me sweeter than usual, and more animated.
“Could the dead return? The kisses with which I warmed it made me swoon with happiness, and I carried it to my bed and lay down with it, pressing it to my lips, as one does a mistress he hopes to enjoy.
“The dead returned! She came! Yes, I saw her, touched her, possessed her as she was when alive in former times, large, blond, plump, with cool breasts, and with hips in the form of a lyre. And I followed that divine, undulating line from the throat to the feet, in all the curves of the flesh, with my caresses.
“Yes, I possessed her, every day and every night. The Dead Woman had returned, the beautiful Dead Woman, the Adorable, the Mysterious, the Unknown, and she returned every night.
“My happiness was so great that I could not conceal it. I found in her a superhuman delight, the profound, inexplicable joy of possessing the Impalpable, the Invisible, the Dead! No lover ever tasted joys more ardent or more terrible.
“I knew not how to conceal my happiness. I loved it so much that I could not bear to leave it. I carried it with me always, everywhere. I walked with it through the city, as if it were my
