M. Le Mesge's excitement had passed all bounds.
"It is worse than shameful; it is infamous."
I almost wanted to strangle him into silence. He seized my arm.
"Read that, sir; and, although you don't know a great deal about the subject, you will see that this article on Roman Africa is a miracle of misinformation, a monument of ignorance. And it is signed ... do you know by whom it is signed?"
"Leave me alone," I said brutally.
"Well, it is signed Gaston Boissier. Yes, sir! Gaston Boissier, grand officer of the Legion of Honor, lecturer at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, permanent secretary of the French Academy, member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Literature, one of those who once ruled out the subject of my thesis ... one of those ... ah, poor university, ah, poor France!"
I was no longer listening. I had begun to read again. My forehead was covered with sweat. But it seemed as if my head had been cleared like a room when a window is opened; memories were beginning to come back like doves winging their way home to the dovecote.
"At that moment, an irrepressible tremor shook her whole body; her eyes dilated as if some terrible sight had filled them with horror.
"'Antonello,' she murmured.
"