And it was so clear, the inscription that flamed in the darkness, that it was not worth while even to attempt an explanation.

We could not speak, nor even look at each other!  In the fatal communion of thought which seized us just then, we turned aside from each other, even shadow-veiled as we were.  We fled from the truth!  In these great happenings we become strangers to each other for the reason that we never knew each other profoundly.  We are vaguely separated on earth from everybody else, but we are mightily distant from our nearest.

* * * * * *

After all these things, my former life resumed its indifferent course.  Certainly I am not so unhappy as they who have the bleeding wound of a bereavement or remorse, but I am not so delighted with life as I once hoped to be.  Ah, men’s love and women’s beauty are too short-lived in this world; and yet, is it not only thereby that we and they exist?  It might be said that love, so pure a thing, the only one worth while in life, is a crime, since it is always punished sooner or later.  I do not understand.  We are a pitiful lot; and everywhere about us—­in our movements, within our walls, and from hour to hour, there is a stifling mediocrity.  Fate’s face is gray.

Notwithstanding, my personal position has established itself and progressively improved.  I am getting three hundred and sixty francs a month, and besides, I have a share in the profits of the litigation office—­about fifty francs a month.  It is a year and a half since I was stagnating in the little glass office, to which Monsieur Mielvaque has been promoted, succeeding me.  Nowadays they say to me, “You’re lucky!” They envy me—­who once envied so many people.  It astonishes me at first, then I get used to it.

I have restored my political plans, but this time I have a rational and normal policy in view.  I am nominated to succeed Crillon in the Town Council.  There, no doubt, I shall arrive sooner or later.  I continue to become a personality by the force of circumstances, without my noticing it, and without any real interest in me on the part of those around me.

Quite a piece of my life has now gone by.  When sometimes I think of that, I am surprised at the length of the time elapsed; at the number of the days and the years that are dead.  It has come quickly, and without much change in myself on the other hand; and I turn away from that vision, at once real and supernatural.  And yet, in spite of myself, my future appears before my eyes—­and its end.  My future will resemble my past; it does so already.  I can dimly see all my life, from one end to the other, all that I am, all that I shall have been.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BRAWLER

At the time of the great military maneuvers of September, 1913, Viviers was an important center of the operations.  All the district was brightened with a swarming of red and blue and with martial ardor.