Suddenly my pupils shrank before the apparition of a ghastly grey light,
and all in a moment I was face to face with a segment of desolation
more horrible than any desert. Monstrous growths of leprosy that had
bubbled up and stiffened; fields of ashen slime--the sloughing of a world
of corruption; hills of demon, fungus swollen with the fatness of
putrefaction; and, in the midst of all, dim, convulsed shapes wallowing,
protruding, or stumbling aimlessly onwards, till they sank and
disappeared.

* * * * *

Madame Barbière threw up her hands when she let me in at the door. My
appearance, no doubt, was ghastly. I knew not the hour nor the lapse
of time covered by my wanderings about the hills, my face hidden in my
palms, a drawn feeling about my heart, my lips muttering--muttering
fragments of prayers, and my throat jerking with horrible laughter.

For hours I lay face downwards on my bed.

"Monsieur has seen it?"

"I have seen it."

"I heard the rain on the hills. The lens will have been blurred. Monsieur
has been spared much."

"God, in His mercy, pity thee! And me--oh, Camille, and me too!"

"He has held out His white hand to me. I go, when I go, with a safe