even know its name. Before it I am like a blind
man who has never seen the sun, but suddenly feels it shining on his
forehead and exclaims: "There is light!" It is this _thing_ that has
made all these women come here to-night and bestow their childish
presence, their somewhat uncouth attention, their tragic lips which
would kiss everything. Do they feel the great current rising from them
which seeks to be caught and held fast, a current altogether new in the
human atmosphere?... Not yet. Not yet.

How subdued Eva looks; her gaze seems clipped short; she's frowning. Her
expression makes me uncomfortable.

Hands flutter like white leaves; a bow from the platform; the meeting is
over.

The auditors stretch themselves a little, then rise to the accompaniment
of clattering benches, gossamer sighs, and the sound of two hundred
bodies moving and coming back to themselves. A faint cackling, then a
full chorus of barnyard noises mounting and spreading.

I plant myself up against the wall to let them pass and see who will
cast thorny glances at my hat, dress and shoes.

"Come on," cries Eva. Her forehead is drawn in hard lines. "Come on."

Outside, the night blowing upon the parting groups of women gives their
scattered voices resonance.

Eva takes my arm ... but no, I feel like being by myself. I repel her
bluntly, as you throw aside a branch you have broken. She instinctively
draws her cloak around her.

"What an absurd evening! Those women!" she says.

She is right, I am sure. Every one of the women, it was easy to see, was
ugly and petty, but together, multiplied and magnified, their
individualities wiped out, they revealed I cannot say what unformed
hope, what substance, what richness.... If only I could explain this to
Eva!

"Hurry, hurry, here comes my street-car! Good night!"

The buzzing of an electric bell, an intense disk of light, another
buzzing, and the little illuminated house stops. With a flutter of her
skirts and a wave of her hand, Eva disappears.

Has she really gone? Goodness, what is she carrying away with her?...

In the nebulous depth of the long avenue I can still distinguish a
vanishing star gliding along its mechanical path.

I had said: "Here is my friend, my companion, my sister." On this
evening, tender as dawn, she has left behind in me a great emotion which
she does not understand.

VII

"A lady," the fat concierge told me. "Been here twice. Well, a sort of
lady, a ... you un