The Inferno | Page 7

of glistening whiteness. All these things attracted
my attention and distracted it at the same time.
I did not know what these people were thinking about. I did not know
who they were. They hid themselves from one another. Their shining
fronts made a wall against which I dashed in vain.
Bracelets, necklaces, rings. The sparkling of the jewels made me feel
far away from them as do the stars. A young girl looked at me with
vague blue eyes. What could I do against that kind of sapphire?
They talked, but the noise left each one to himself, and deafened me, as
the light blinded me.
Nevertheless, at certain moments these people, because in the course of
conversation they thought of things they had at heart, revealed
themselves as if they were alone. I recognized the revelation of this
truth, and felt myself turning pale on remembering that other
revelation.
Some one spoke of money, and the subject became general. The
assembly was stirred by an ideal. A dream of grasping and touching
shone through their eyes, just as a little adoration had come into the
eyes of the servant when she found herself alone.
They recalled military heroes triumphantly, and some men thought,
"Me, too!" and worked themselves up into a fever, showing what they
were thinking of, in spite of their ridiculously low station and the

slavery of their social position. One young girl seemed dazzled, looked
overwhelmed. She could not restrain a sigh of ecstasy. She blushed
under the effect of an inscrutable thought. I saw the surge of blood
mount to her face. I saw her heart beaming.
They discussed the phenomena of occultism and the Beyond. "Who
knows?" some one said. Then they discussed death. Two diners, at
opposite ends of the table, a man and a woman who had not spoken to
each other and seemed not to be acquainted, exchanged a glance that I
caught. And seeing that glance leap from their eyes at the same time,
under the shock of the idea of death, I understood that these two loved
each other.
. . . . .
The meal was over. The young people went into the parlour. A lawyer
was telling some people around him about a murder case that had been
decided that day. The nature of the subject was such that he expressed
himself very cautiously, as though confiding a secret. A man had
injured and then murdered a little girl and had kept singing at the top of
his voice to prevent the cries of his little victim from being heard. One
by one the people stopped talking and listened with the air of really not
listening, while those not so close to the speaker felt like drawing up
right next to him. About this image risen in their midst, this paroxysm
so frightful to our timid instincts, the silence spread in a circle in their
souls like a terrific noise.
Then I heard the laugh of a woman, of an honest woman, a dry
crackling laugh, which she thought innocent perhaps, but which
caressed her whole being, a burst of laughter, which, made up of
formless instinctive cries, was almost fleshy. She stopped and turned,
silent again. And the speaker, sure of his effect, continued in a calm
voice to hurl upon these people the story of the monster's confession.
A young mother, whose daughter was sitting beside her, half got up,
but could not leave. She sat down again and bent forward to conceal
her daughter. She was eager and yet ashamed to listen.

Another woman was sitting motionless, with her head leaning forward,
but her mouth compressed as if she were defending herself tragically.
And beneath the worldly mask of her face, I saw a fanatical martyr's
smile impress itself like handwriting.
And the men! I distinctly heard one man, the man who was so calm and
simple, catch his breath. Another man, with a characterless business
man's face, was making a great effort to talk of this and that to a young
girl sitting next to him, while he watched her with a look of which he
was ashamed and which made him blink. And everybody condemned
the satyr in terms of the greatest abuse.
And so, for a moment, they had not lied. They had almost confessed,
perhaps unconsciously, and even without knowing what they had
confessed. They had almost been their real selves. Desire had leaped
into their eyes, and the reflection passed--and I had seen what happened
in the silence, sealed by their lips.
It is this, it is this thought, this kind of living spectre, that I wished to
study. I rose, shrugging my shoulders, and hurried out, impelled by
eagerness to see the sincerity of men and women unveiled before