“Look, there’s where it is! Then you will follow this side … and …”
I believe he was giving me instructions about my trip to the place of exile I was bound for … told me the names of villages, persons. The word “sea” recurred again and again with the rumble of pebbles, washed by the waves and rubbing against one another.
“Will you remember?”
And without knowing exactly what he referred to, I answered:
“Yes, yes, I’ll remember.”
It was only at the station, this vast building, filled with noise and bustle, that I realized my situation. I felt terribly downhearted. And so I was going away! It’s all over then! Never again shall I see Juliette, never again! At this moment I forgot all my suffering, my shame, my ruin, the irreparable conduct of Juliette and remembered only our brief moments of happiness, and I rebelled against the injustice of being separated from my well-beloved. Lirat meantime was saying:
“And then, if you only knew what a bliss it is to live among the lowly, to study their poor but worthy life, their resignation of martyrs, their. …”
I had a notion to escape his surveillance, to flee then and there. A foolish hope kept me from doing that. I said to myself: “Celestine will no doubt bring word to Juliette that Lirat has been at the house, that he has led me away by force; she will understand at once that something horrible is happening, that I am at this station, that I am going to leave. And she will come running.” I really believed she would. So strong was my faith that through the large open windows, I watched the people who were entering; I searched among the various groups, examined closely the dense crowd of passengers standing in front of the track gate. And whenever some elegant lady appeared I gave a start, ready to dart toward her. Lirat went on:
“And to think that there are some people who consider them brutes, these heroes! Ah! you will see those magnificent brutes with their horny hands, their eyes full of infinitude, and their backs which make one weep.”
Even on the platform I was still hoping for Juliette’s arrival. Surely in a second she will be here, pale, vanquished, suppliant, with outstretched arms: “My Jean, my Jean, I was a bad woman, forgive me! Don’t bear me ill will on account of that, don’t forsake me. What do you expect me to become, without you? Oh, come back, my Jean, or else take me along!” And silhouettes flitted and disappeared in the cars; fantastic shadows crept along and split against the walls; long whitish columns of smoke spread out under the vaulted roof. …
“Embrace me, my dear Mintié. Embrace me!”
Lirat drew me close to his breast. He was crying. “Write to me as soon as you get there. Goodbye!”
He pushed me into a car and drew the door curtain.
“Goodbye!”
A whistle, then a dull rolling … then lights chasing one another … things receding somewhere … then nothing … except black night. Why did Juliette not come? Why? And in the midst of rumpled skirts on the carpets, in her dressing room, in front of her looking glass, I clearly see her, bare-shouldered, applying rice powder to her face. Celestine with her soft flaccid fingers is sewing on a band of crepe at the bottom of the low-cut waist, and a man whom I don’t know, reclining on the sofa, with crossed legs, watches Juliette with eyes in which desire is gleaming. The gas is burning, candlelights are blazing, a bouquet of roses which someone has just brought, mingles its more delicate perfume with the violent odors of dresses! And Juliette takes a rose, twists its stem, straightens out its petals and sticks it in the buttonhole of the man with a tender smile. A bonnet with hanging strings is perched on top of a chandelier. …
And the train is moving on, puffing, panting. The night is ever black, and I am plunging into nothingness. …
IX
Lying flat upon the dune, face downward, my elbows sunk in the sand with head buried in my hands, and staring into the space before me, I dream. … The sea is in front of me, immense and glaucous, streaked with violet shadows, plowed by mighty billows whose crests, rising and falling back and forth, are white in the sun. The reefs of la Gamelle from time to time uncover the dark points of their rocks and send forth a dull noise like a distant cannonade. Yesterday the tempest broke loose; today the wind has subsided, but the sea still refuses to quiet down. The waves come up, swell, roll, rise, toss up their manes of swirling foam, break into ripples and fall back upon the pebbles, flat and broken, with a frightful roar of rage. But the sky no longer threatens, streaks of blue appear between the rifts of clouds swiftly borne away, and the seagulls are soaring high in the air. The fishing boats have just left the harbor, they are receding in the distance, diminishing, separating, becoming indistinct and finally vanishing. To my right, dominated by sinking dunes, is the strand extending as far as Ploch, which one can see behind a rise in the ground in the midst of dreary verdure, the roofs of the nearest houses, the belfry of granite stone at the end of which there rises a lighthouse. Beyond the pier the eye can see limitless expanses of pink shores, silvery bays, soft-blue cliffs covered with mist, so faint in the distance that they look like columns of vapor, and the ever present sea and the ever present sky which blend together yonder into a sort of mysterious and poignant elimination of all things. … To my left the dune, where the broomrape spreads its corymbs of purple flowers, ends abruptly. The ground rises, becomes steep and the rocks pile up, topple over, form openings of roaring abysses or plunge into the sea, cleaving its
