Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/279

Rh sky, to the masts of the yachts and flag-bedecked barques.

For one moment, at the close of day, Escal-Vigor was seen brilliantly illuminated, like an edifice of emerald; then a veil of blood hovered over it on the side that faced towards the ocean.

Waves of men on the one hand, of women on the other, met on the outskirts of the villages. The women shouted out their coarse needs; the men, ape-like, gesticulated back their strong desire.

Guidon took leave at last of his comrades, the fellows of the wretched borough of Klaarvatsch. Being hustled, he hastened his steps in order to escape from the strange hurly-burly beginning to hem him in, and to regain Escal-Vigor. The thought of his friend came back to him, full of gentle reproach, of entreaty, and nostalgia. On his way through the crowd, meaning looks alarmed the truant; they pointed him out to each other with knowing winks and ominous whispers.

As he stopped to take breath, when he was clear of the pushing crowd and just as he was about to enter the elm-grove, twice a hundred years old, which led to the