'Fury at Death and Its Imbecile Trick'

In the early evening of January 22, 1900, Jules Renard learns that his older brother, Maurice, who works for the State Railways, has fainted and cannot be revived. Their father had similar spells and Renard thinks, “I’ll bring him round, give him a good shake, tell him when you’re unwell you must go to bed.” A fat man “wearing his legionnaire pin” (Renard is a man for details), tells him: “‘Your poor brother is very low.’ Then, in my ear so that Marinette [Renard’s wife] will not hear: ‘Dead.’ The word means nothing.” My reaction while watching my brother die in hospice. You don’t forget seventy years of coexistence. As I wrote at the time: “I watched as his eyes closed and he stopped breathing. There was another sense, too, of a sudden diminishment, a departure leaving only flesh and blood.” Briefly, I waited for him to wake up, to issue another wisecrack. Renard goes to see his brother: “Here he is, stretched out on a pale green sofa, mouth open, one knee raised, his head resting on…