He said
he did, and told me about her case. There was no hope for her; only a
transfusion of blood could save her; she was almost bloodless. He
described how blood could be taken from the arm of a healthy man and
passed into the veins of the almost bloodless. But as he spoke things
began to get dim and his voice to grow faint; I heard some one saying,
"You're very pale," and he ordered some brandy for me. The South could
not save her; practically nothing could; and I returned home thinking
of her.
Twenty years have passed, and I am thinking of her again. Poor little
Irish girl! Cast out in the end by a sudden freshet on an ultimate
cafe. Poor little heap of bones! And I bow my head and admire the
romance of destiny which ordained that I, who only saw her once,
should be the last to remember her. Perhaps I should have forgotten
her had it not been that I wrote a poem, a poem which I now inscribe
and dedicate to her nameless memory.
CHAPTER IV
THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN
Octave Barres liked his friends to come to his studio, and a few of us
who believed in his talent used to drop in during the afternoon, and
little by little I got to know every picture, every sketch; but one
never knows everything that a painter has done, and one day, coming
into the studio, I caught sight of a full-length portrait I had never
seen before on the easel.
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