Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part IV - I
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THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL 243
against which the wheels pushed shook the muscles and
nerves of his tired arms. He had not broken his fast since
the early morning ; his voice sounded thin like the voice
of a consumptive, so that his cries were more like cries
for help now, with little preliminary sighs caused by want
of breath.
His feet were burning and his hands trembled ; he felt
as if the marrow in his spine were melting with the heat,
and the thin blood hammered in his temples as he turned
towards the city, seeking the shade of the Quai de
l’Horloge. He halted for a moment before a wine-shop
in the Place de Parvis, half inclined to spend his
few pennies on a glass of wine. But he pulled himself
together and trudged on, past Nôtre-Dame, towards the
Morgue.
He could not drag himself away from this mysterious
little house, where so many problems of life have been
solved, and he entered. How cool and beautiful it was
inside, where the dead lay on marble slabs, the hoar-frost
on their hair and beards sparkling as on a beautiful, bright
winter day. Some of them looked distressed, because the
rush of the water into their lungs, or the stab of the knife
into the heart, had given them pain ; one of them smiled
as if he were glad that all was over ; one lay there with an
expression of indifference on his face, as if nothing
mattered ; the problem was solved, at any rate : he had
lived until he died. No more clothes required, no more
food, no shelter ! No sorrow, no cares. All held in their
grasp the greatest boon life has to bestow : a calm which
neither want, failure of crops, sickness, death, war or
famine, American wheat or the hard laws which regulate
wages, could disturb. Sleep without dreams, how gentle
a sleep ! And without an awakening, how splendid !
The old man must have envied the sleepers, for he
turned his head on leaving, to feast his eyes once more
R 2
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