He walked along the sandy shore; he came upon the skeleton of a pine-tree, washed by the sea and bleached by the sun to a deadly pallor; it lay there like a skeleton of a dragon and between its ribs flowered the purple lythrum and the golden lysimachia; little piles of shells lay heaped round the wild aster which lived its life on empty sepulchres; the air was laden with the scent of valerian which grew in profusion on a bed of evil-smelling seaweed.
He left the shore and turned his footsteps towards the wood. How tall and straight the trees were, a little too straight perhaps, but he could see the sea through the trunks, the sea—solitude—nature! The ground was as smooth as if it had been stamped down and flattened by human feet; here was the stump of a tree—the axe had been here; over there a nettle grew, men had been here; there could be no mistake, for the nettle is a parasite which follows in the wake of man and never ventures into the solitude of the woods or the large stretches of meadow-land; the nettle is vermin, supported by man, and can only exist in the vicinity of man; it collects all dust and dirt on its hairy, sticky leaves and burns the finger which touches it,—a magnificent breed, nourished by sin.
He went on. His eyes fell on a sparrow, the denizen of the gutter and backyard—the winged creature which feels at home in the dust, bathes in dirt and should have been a rat since it makes no use of its wings—man's jackal. What was it doing out here where there were no men? What did it live on? On the seed of the nettle?
A few more steps and he found the sole of a shoe; a large foot, a foot deformed by hard work, had trodden heavily on this sole. Between the trunks he came upon a fire-place made of boulders, an altar perhaps, on which Nature's conqueror had sacrificed to Strength. The fire had long been extinct, but the effects of it were still visible. The ground was dug up as if by the hoofs of animals, the trees were stripped of their bark, even the rocks were broken; there was a gigantic well in the mountain, filled with dirty brown water; the bowels of the earth had been laid bare and the broken pieces scattered as if by naughty children, disappointed because they had not found what they sought. But a great piece of mountain was missing. It had been taken away with a feldspar to the china factory, and only when there was no more to be got, man had stayed away.
He fled from the devastation, down to his boat. He noticed the traces of footsteps on the sand. He cursed and turned to fly when he suddenly saw in a flash that he had been cursing himself; and all at once he understood why the seagulls and the adder and all the others had shunned him, and he retraced his footsteps, for he could not escape from himself.
He gazed at the sea through his field-glasses in the direction whence he had come. A white dress and a blue cover shone among the oak-trees. He climbed into the boat, ate his bread, drank a liqueur and muttered, seizing the oars—
"You, whose every desire has been fulfilled, who possess the best of all things Life has to bestow, why are you discontent?"
[XIII]
At last the house had been cleansed of her friends. The last one, the pretty one, had disappeared in the company of a well-known professor, who had returned from an expedition with four orders and an assured position. Having no home of her own, the fair lady had lived in my house, cost free. She had seized the opportunity, fastened herself on to the poor fellow and seduced him one evening in a cab, where, for some reason or other, she found herself with him; she forced him into marrying her by making a scandalous scene in a third house, to which they had both been invited. As soon as she felt sure of her position she dropped the mask, and at a party, under the influence of too much wine, she called Marie a degenerate. A colleague, who happened to hear the remark, thought it his duty to tell me at once.