live, and seeing him already on his feet, perched on his long legs,
bawling, clearing his throat, sneering, his desire for his recovery
became less eager; he was even beginning to cease to desire it, to
regard it as annoying and inconsiderate. He asked himself anxiously,
with a feeling of real uneasiness:

"What in the world would he do if he came back, that dismal actor
fellow? Would he return to the Odéon? Would he stroll through its
corridors displaying his great scar? Would he once more have to see him
prowling round Félicie?"

He held the lighted lamp close to the body and recognized the livid
bleeding wound, the irregular outline of which reminded him of the
Africa of his schoolboy maps.

Plainly death had been instantaneous, and he failed to understand how he
could for a moment have doubted it.

He left the house and proceeded to stride up and down in the garden. The
image of the wound was flashing before his eyes like the impression
caused by too bright a light. It moved away from him, increasing in size
against the black sky; it took the shape of a pale continent whence he
saw swarms of distracted little blacks pouring forth, armed with bows
and arrows.

He decided that the first thing to do was to fetch Madame Simonneau, who
lived close at hand, in the Boulevard Bineau, in the residential part of
the café. He closed the gate carefully, and went in search of the
housekeeper. Once on the boulevard, he recovered his equanimity. He felt
most uncomfortable about the accident; he accepted the accomplished