the glowing cigarette, shaken by an arm as
unsubstantial as the smoke that came from it.

It was not tobacco that he was smoking. The odour of a drug sickened
me.

He held out his hand feebly toward the closed window, modest with its
half-lifted curtains.

"Look--Benares and Allahabad. A sumptuous ceremony--tiaras--insignia,
and women's ornaments. In the foreground, the high priest, with his
elaborate head-dress in tiers--a vague pagoda, architecture, epoch,
race. How different we are from those creatures. Are /they/ right or
are /we/ right?"

Now he extended the circle of the past, with a mighty effort.

"Our travels--all those bonds one leaves behind. All useless.
Travelling does not make us greater. Why should the mere covering of
ground make us greater?"

The man bowed his wasted head.

. . . . .

He who had just been in ecstasy now began to complain.

"I keep remembering--I keep remembering. My heart has no pity on me."

"Ah," he mourned, a moment afterwards, with a gesture of resignation,
"we cannot say good-by to everything."

The woman was there, but she could do nothing, although so greatly
adored. She was there with only her beauty. It was a superhuman
vision that he evoked, heightened by regret, by remorse and greed. He
did not want it to end. He wanted it back again. He loved his past.

Inexorable, motionless, the past is endowed with the attributes of
divinity, because, for believers as well as for unbelievers, the great
attribute of God is that of being prayed to.

. . . . .

The pregnant woman had gone out. I saw her go to the door, softly with
maternal carefulness of herself.

Anna and the sick man were left alone. The evening had a gripping
reality. It seemed to live, to be firmly rooted, and to hold its
place. Never before had the room been so full of it.

"One more day coming to an end," he said, and went on as if pursuing
his train of thought:

"We must get everything ready for our marriage."

"Michel!" cried the young woman instinctively, as if she could not hold
the name back.

"Michel will not be angry at us," the man replied. "He knows you love
him, Anna. He will not be frightened by a formality, pure and simple--
by a marriage /in extremis,"/ he added emphatically, smiling as though
to console himself.

They looked at each other. He was dry, feverish. His words came from
deep down in his being. She trembled.

With his eyes on her, so white and