| 913 | 914 | 915 | 916 | 917 |
| 1 | 236 | 472 | 708 | 944 |
|
evening at Rotterdam. Zounds! I will begin life again in the van. We
will draw it, won't we, Homo?"
A light tapping announced the wolf's consent.
Ursus continued,--
"If one could only get out of a grief as one gets out of a city! Homo,
we must yet be happy. Alas! there must always be the one who is no more.
A shadow remains on those who survive. You know whom I mean, Homo. We
were four, and now we are but three. Life is but a long loss of those
whom we love. They leave behind them a train of sorrows. Destiny amazes
us by a prolixity of unbearable suffering; who then can wonder that the
old are garrulous? It is despair that makes the dotard, old fellow!
Homo, the wind continues favourable. We can no longer see the dome of
St. Paul's. We shall pass Greenwich presently. That will be six good
miles over. Oh! I turn my back for ever on those odious capitals, full
of priests, of magistrates, and of people. I prefer looking at the
leaves rustling in the woods. Her forehead is still in perspiration. I
don't like those great violet veins in her arm. There is fever in them.
Oh! all this is killing me. Sleep, my child. Yes; she sleeps."
Here a voice spoke: an ineffable voice, which seemed from afar, and
appeared to come at once from the heights and the depths--a voice
divinely fearful, the voice of Dea.
All that Gwynplaine had hitherto felt seemed nothing. His angel spoke.
915
Page
Quick Jump
|