When he left for Darfour, Douglas Kaine must surely have left in Edinburgh a
Miss Flora, as blonde as Saint-Yves' Flora. But what are these slips
of girls beside Antinea! Kaine, however sensible a mortal, however
made for this kind of love, had loved otherwise. He was dead. And here
was number 27, on account of whom Kaine dashed himself on the rocks of
the Sahara, and who, in his turn, is dead also.
"To die, to love. How naturally the word resounded in the red marble
hall. How Antinea seemed to tower above that circle of pale statues!
Does love, then, need so much death in order that it may be
multiplied? Other women, in other parts of the world, are doubtless as
beautiful as Antinea, more beautiful perhaps. I hold you to witness
that I have not said much about her beauty. Why then, this obsession,
this fever, this consumption of all my being? Why am I ready, for the
sake of pressing this quivering form within my arms for one instant,
to face things that I dare not think of for fear I should tremble
before them?
"Here is number 53, the last. Morhange will be 54. I shall be 55. In
six months, eight, perhaps,--what difference anyway?--I shall be
hoisted into this niche, an image without eyes, a dead soul, a
finished body.
"I touched the heights of bliss, of exaltation that can be felt. What
a child I was, just now! I lost my temper with a Negro manicure. I was
jealous of Morhange, on my word! Why not, since I was at it, be
jealous of those here present; then of the others, the absent, who
will come, one by one, to fill the black circle of the still empty
niches.... Morhange, I know, is at this moment with Antinea, and it is
to me a bitter and splendid joy to think of his joy. But some evening,
in three months, four perhaps, the embalmers will come here. Niche 54
will receive its prey. Then a Targa slave will advance toward me. I
shall shiver with superb ecstasy. He will touch my arm. And it will be
my turn to penetrate into eternity by the bleeding door of love.
"When I emerged from my meditation, I found myself back in the
library, where the falling night obscured the shadows of the people
who were assembled there.
"I recognized M. Le Mesge, the Pastor, the Hetman, Aguida, two Tuareg
slaves, still more, all joining in the most animated conference.
"I drew nearer, astonished, even alarmed to see together so many
people who ordinarily felt no kind of sympathy for each other.