Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/390

362 the avidity of one asphyxiated and restored to life the briny air, the aroma of the open, the perfume of odoriferous spices, and even the smell of fetid organic matters loaded on the merchant fleet. The haunting odor of the hospital dissolved in this superior aroma.

Laurent was aware of diligent crews, discovered choral manœuvres in the great gestures of elevators and cranes, recorded the calls, the signals and the orders. He confused in an immense transport of affection the native horizon and all whose sight is circumscribed. A profound and total beatitude invaded him; a sort of Nirvana, of voluptuous stupor. While he was tasting and relishing the ambient and tangible reality, he no longer felt himself part of the city. For it took on the proportions and the character of a sublime work of art. Would he never again participate in creation, or had he been dissolved and melted into the essences and the principles of which it was composed?

It was the first day that he had appreciated it, that he had thus assimilated it through all his pores. In what strange life was he living? If such delights as these constituted the day without a tomorrow, he would never tire of the eternity!

A melody from the carillon preluded the stroke of three o'clock.

Before the first chime, Paridael felt the sensation of cold of a sleeper who awakes in the open air; at the same time, it seemed that he was being pulled fiercely by the sleeve, and that the last human voices he had heard, those of Béjard's young workers, were hailing him from the far distance. He turned toward the buildings of the cartridge plant. There was no living soul beneath the buildings and the river, and