“In the name of God,” I shouted, “what do you work for—­what have you been plotting and plotting for, if not to enjoy your life at the last?” He made a small indefinite motion of ignorance, as if I had propounded to him a problem that he could not solve, that he did not think worth the solving.

It came to me as the confirmation of a suspicion—­that motion.  They had no joy, these people who were to supersede us; their clear-sightedness did nothing more for them than just that enabling them to spread desolation among us and take our places.  It had been in her manner all along, she was like Fate; like the abominable Fate that desolates the whole length of our lives; that leaves of our hopes, of our plans, nothing but a hideous jumble of fragments like those of statues, smashed by hammers; the senseless, inscrutable, joyless Fate that we hate, and that debases us forever and ever.  She had been all that to me ... and to how many more?

“I used to be a decent personality,” I vociferated at him.  “Do you hear—­decent.  I could look a man in the face.  And you cannot even enjoy.  What do you come for?  What do you live for?  What is at the end of it all?”

“Ah, if I knew ...” he answered, negligently.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I wanted to see her, to finish it one way or another, and, at my aunt’s house, I found her standing in an immense white room; waiting for me.  There was a profusion of light.  It left her absolutely shadowless, like a white statue in a gallery; inscrutable.

“I have come,” I said.  I had it in my mind to say:  “Because there is nothing for me to do on earth.”  But I did not, I looked at her instead.

“You have come,” she repeated.  She had no expression in her voice, in her eyes.  It was as if I were nothing to her; as if I were the picture of a man.  Well, that was it; I was a picture, she a statue.  “I did it,” I said at last.

“And you want?” she asked.

“You know,” I answered, “I want my....”  I could not think of the word.  It was either a reward or a just due.  She looked at me, quite suddenly.  It made an effect as if the Venus of Milo had turned its head toward me.  She began to speak, as if the statue were speaking, as if a passing bell were speaking; recording a passing passionlessly.

“You have done nothing at all,” she said.  “Nothing.”

“And yet,” I said, “I was at the heart of it all.”

“Nothing at all,” she repeated.  “You were at the heart, yes; but at the heart of a machine.”  Her words carried a sort of strong conviction.  I seemed suddenly to see an immense machine—­unconcerned, soulless, but all its parts made up of bodies of men:  a great mill grinding out the dust of centuries; a great wine-press.  She was continuing her speech.

“As for you—­you are only a detail, like all the others; you were set in a place because you would act as you did.  It was in your character.  We inherit the earth and you, your day is over....  You remember that day, when I found you—­the first day?”