And Moisse, his senses strained, thought he heard a noise—a faint crunching noise.
He listened.
The noise seemed to grow louder. He began to itch but he remained bending over the head. He could hear them, like a faraway murmur, a purring, uncertain sound.
“They’re shouting and groaning, crying out, weeping and laughing,” he mused. “It is life ... life....”
He looked up and down the crowded burning street with its frantic crowd, and smiled.
“Life,” he repeated....
He walked away. Before him floated the hair of the beggar moving as if stirred by a slow wind, and he itched.
“But who was the old man?” he thought.
A young woman, plump and smiling, jostled him. He felt her soft hip pressing against him for a moment.
A child running barefoot through the street brushed against his legs. He felt its sticky fingers seize him for an instant and then the child was gone. On he walked.