zio: _Les Vierges aux Rochers_. Cf. The
_Revue des Deux Mondes_ of October 15, 1896; page 867.]

I turned the pages feverishly. My mind seemed to be clearing.

Behind me, M. Le Mesge, deep in an article, voiced his opinions in
indignant growls.

I continued reading:

"On all sides a magnificent view spread out before us in the raw
light. The chain of rocks, clearly visible in their barren desolation
which stretched to the very summit, lay stretched out like some great
heap of gigantic, unformed things left by some primordial race of
Titans to stupefy human beings. Overturned towers...."

"It is shameful, downright shameful," the Professor was repeating.

"Overturned towers, crumbling citadels, cupolas fallen in, broken
pillars, mutilated colossi, prows of vessels, thighs of monsters,
bones of titans,--this mass, impassable with its ridges and gullies,
seemed the embodiment of everything huge and tragic. So clear were the
distances...."

"Downright shameful," M. Le Mesge kept on saying in exasperation,
thumping his fist on the table.

"So clear were the distances that I could see, as if I had it under my
eyes, infinitely enlarged, every contour of the rock which Violante
had shown me through the window with the gesture of a creator...."

Trembling, I closed the magazine. At my feet, now red, I saw the rock
which Antinea had pointed out to me the day of our first interview,
huge, steep, overhanging the reddish brown garden.

"That is my horizon," she had said.

M. Le Mesge's excitement had passed all bounds.

"It is worse than shameful; it is infamous."

I almost wanted to strangle him into silence. He seized my arm.

"Read that, sir; and, although you don't know a great deal about the
subject, you will see that this article on Roman Africa is a miracle
of misinformation, a monument of ignorance. And it is signed ... do
you know by whom it is signed?"

"Leave me alone," I said brutally.

"Well, it is signed Gaston Boissier. Yes, sir! Gaston Boissier, grand
officer of the Legion of Honor, lecturer at the _Ecole Normale
Superieure_, permanent secretary of the French Academy, member of the
Academy of Inscriptions and Literature, one of those who once ruled
out the subject of my thesis ... one of those ... ah, poor university,
ah, poor France!"

I was no longer listening. I had begun to read again. My forehead was
covered with sweat. But it seemed as if my head had been cleared like
a room when a window