lves of
which they are made, for the temple of night is enclosing them.

The ancient hut of a fisherman is outlined on the grassy slope. Below
it, crowding reeds rustle in the current; and where they are more
sparse they fashion concentric orbs upon the gleaming, fleeing water.
The landscape has something exotic or antique about it. You are no
matter where in the world or among the centuries. You are on some
corner of the eternal earth, where men and women are drawing near to
each other, and cling together while they wrap themselves in mystery.

* * * * * *

Dreamily I ascend again towards the sounds and the swarming of the
town. There, the Sunday evening rendezvous,--the prime concern of the
men,--is less discreet. Desire displays itself more crudely on the
pavements. Voices chatter and laughter dissolves, even through closed
doors; there are shouts and songs.

Up there one sees clearly. Faces are discovered by the harsh light of
the gas jets and its reflection from plate-glass shop windows. Antonia
goes by, surrounded by men, who bend forward and look at her with
desire amid their clamor of conversation. She saw me, and a little
sound of appeal comes from her across the escort that presses upon her.
But I turn aside and let her go by.

When she and her harness of men have disappeared, I smell in their wake
the odor of Petrolus. He is lamp-man at the factory. Yellow, dirty,
cadaverous, red-eyed, he smells rancid, and was, perhaps, nurtured on
paraffin. He is some one washed away. You do not see him, so much as
smell him.

Other women are there. Many a Sunday have I, too, joined in all that
love-making.

* * * * * *

Among these beings who chat and take hold of each other, an isolated
woman stands like a post, and makes an empty space around her.

It is Louise Verte. She is fearfully ugly, and she was too virtuous
formerly, at a time when, so they say, she need not have been. She
regrets this, and relates it without shame, in order to be revenged on
virtue. She would like to have a lover, but no one wants her, because
of her bony face and her scraped appearance; from a sort of eczema.
Children make sport of her, knowing her needs; for the disclosures of
their elders have left a stain on them. A five-year-old girl points
her tiny finger at Louise and twitters, "She wants a man."

In the Place is Veron, going about aimlessl