"Yes, the words, the land of my birth, they console me and compensate, but they would not bring me my mother back."

"Go away, image of my living mother, full of life, as I saw her in France for the last time. Go away! My mother's ghost."

"In my solitude I sing to myself a sweet lullaby, as sweet as my mother used to sing to me."

"I say to myself that her small hands are no more worm, and that I would never again carry them soft to my front."

"Alone dwells every man and everyone mocks everyone else, and a deserted island is our pain."

"Never again I would know her slow kisses which are hardly felt. Never again the ringing mourning bells, songs of the …"

"Human friends, friends in hardship and in life, this is our pure love, love of mother and son."

"My true single consolation is that she is not present to see me in my agony of her death."

"In my sleep, which is the song of the tombs, I have just seen her again, as beautiful as in her youth."

"She answers no more, the one who used to answer always."