"At that critical instant, this was the only train of thought permissible. The horror and strangeness of the spectacle no longer counted. Why was this, technically speaking, a defective picture? Why was the faultless mechanism, which until now had worked with perfect smoothness, suddenly disordered? What was the grain of sand that had thrown it out of gear?
"Really the problem was proposed to me with a simplicity that confounded me. The terms of the problem were familiar to all. We had before us cinematographic pictures. These cinematographic pictures did not proceed from the wall itself. They did not come from any part of the amphitheatre. Then whence were they projected? And what obstacle was now preventing their free projection?
"Instinctively, I made the only movement that could be made, the movement which a child would have made if that elementary question had been put to it: I raised my eyes to the sky.
"It was absolutely clear, an immense, empty sky.
"Clear and empty, yes, but in the part which my eyes were able to interrogate. Was it the same in the part hidden from my view by the upper wall of the amphitheatre?
"The mere silent utterance of the words which propounded the question was enough to make me almost swoon with anxiety. They bore the tremendous truth within themselves. I had only to speak them for the great mystery to vanish utterly.
"With trembling limbs and a heart that almost ceased to beat, I climbed to the top of the amphitheatre and gazed at the horizon. Yonder, towards the west, light clouds were floating. . . ."
CHAPTER XIV
MASSIGNAC AND VELMOT
"Clouds were floating. . . . Clouds were floating. . . ."