but then men saw only the shining eyes, the feet were hid. She was the
divine monster in whom each of the living found himself multiplied,
the devouring Immortality where those about to die wished to believe
they would find life, super-life, crowned with glory. Her invisible
presence flowed through the air like wine; each man brought something
to the vintage, his basket, his bunch of grapes;--his ideas, passions,
devotions, interests. There was many a nasty worm among the grapes,
much filth under the trampling feet, but the wine was of rubies and
set the heart aflame;--Clerambault gulped it down greedily.

Nevertheless he was not entirely metamorphosed, for his soul was not
altered, it was only forgotten; as soon as he was alone he could hear
it moaning, and for this reason he avoided solitude. He persisted in
not returning to St. Prix, where the family usually stayed in summer,
and reinstalled himself in his apartment at Paris, on the fifth floor
in the Rue d'Assas. He would not wait a week, or go back to help in
the moving. He craved the friendly warmth that rose up from Paris, and
poured in at his windows; any excuse was enough to plunge into it, to
go down into the streets, join the groups, follow the processions, buy
all the newspapers,--which he despised as a rule. He would come back
more and more demoralised, anaesthetised as to what passed within
him, the habit of his conscience broken, a stranger in his house, in
himself;--and that is why he felt more at home out of doors than in.




Madame Clerambault came back to Paris with her daughter, and the first
evening after their arrival Clerambault carried Rosine off to the
Boulevards. The solemn fervour of the first days had passed. War had