The bell has rung, and we go away in company.  He has pulled off his blue trousers and tunic and thrown them into a corner—­two objects which have grown heavy and rusty, like tools.  But the dirty shell of his toil did upholster him a little, and he emerges from it gaunter, and horribly squeezed within the littleness of a torturing jacket.  His bony legs, in trousers too wide and too short, break off at the bottom in long and mournful shoes, with hillocks, and resembling crocodiles; and their soles, being soaked in paraffin, leave oily footprints, rainbow-hued, in the plastic mud.

Perhaps it is because of this dismal companion towards whom I turn my head, and whom I see trotting slowly and painfully at my side in the rumbling grayness of the evening exodus, that I have a sudden and tragic vision of the people, as in a flash’s passing. (I do sometimes get glimpses of the things of life momentarily.) The dark doorway to my vision seems torn asunder.  Between these two phantoms in front the sable swarm outspreads.  The multitude encumbers the plain that bristles with dark chimneys and cranes, with ladders of iron planted black and vertical in nakedness—­a plain vaguely scribbled with geometrical lines, rails and cinder paths—­a plain utilized yet barren.  In some places about the approaches to the factory cartloads of clinker and cinders have been dumped, and some of it continues to burn like pyres, throwing off dark flames and darker curtains.  Higher, the hazy clouds vomited by the tall chimneys come together in broad mountains whose foundations brush the ground and cover the land with a stormy sky.  In the depths of these clouds humanity is let loose.  The immense expanse of men moves and shouts and rolls in the same course all through the suburb.  An inexhaustible echo of cries surrounds us; it is like hell in eruption and begirt by bronze horizons.

At that moment I am afraid of the multitude.  It brings something limitless into being, something which surpasses and threatens us; and it seems to me that he who is not with it will one day be trodden underfoot.

My head goes down in thought.  I walk close to Marcassin, who gives me the impression of an escaping animal, hopping through the darkness—­whether because of his name,[1] or his stench, I do not know.  The evening is darkening; the wind is tearing leaves away; it thickens with rain and begins to nip.

[Footnote 1:  Marcassin—­a young wild boar.—­Tr.]

My miserable companion’s voice comes to me in shreds.  He is trying to explain to me the law of unremitting toil.  An echo of his murmur reaches my face.

“And that’s what one hasn’t the least idea of.  Because what’s nearest to us, often, one doesn’t see it.”

“Yes, that’s true,” I say, rather weary of his monotonous complaining.

I try a few words of consolation, knowing that he was recently married.  “After all, no one comes bothering you in your own little corner.  There’s always that.  And then, after all, you’re going home—­your wife is waiting for you.  You’re lucky——­”