the saddest person in the world

I met the saddest man in the world once, it was in France when I was a teenager on summer vacation. He was already an old man then, about 80 years old, his name was Monsieur Paul and he knew my Dad.Monsieur Paul was a young man in the 1930s. He came from a good family, they were well-to-do even during the Depression, and he had his own car -- a rare thing for a young man at that time. He was engaged to be married to the one girl in the world whom he truly loved and adored.

On the morning of their wedding day in the spring of 1934, Monsieur Paul wanted to surprise his bride, so he drove over to her house to pick her up. She was already wearing her wedding dress. Evidently she stooped over to fix her shoelace or something, and he couldn't see that she was right behind the car; he put it in reverse and backed over his bride. She died the same day.

Poor Monsieur Paul never got over that one. He never even considered marrying anyone else, and spent the rest of his long life living alone and doing good things for people.