Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/82

58 lug him down to the ground and more than maul him.

The holiday-makers do not all become violent, but all commit acts of folly. They drown their care in beer and stifle it in noise. They drink: some in order to forget, perhaps to relieve the regret they feel at leaving a familiar abode and familiar faces; others, on the contrary, to celebrate their disenfranchisement from the old yoke and to hail, full of confidence, the new fireside.

The greater part fraternise at once with their companions of tomorrow, and lose no time in paying their respects to the gawky females enlisted with them.

And these excellent natures, these irresponsible beings, whom reflection would fatigue, enjoy almost to the verge of licence in a headlong manner, without afterthought and without sparing themselves, the powerful charm of this truce during which they are free in their speech, in their gestures, and of their bodies. They are frantic like dogs let loose, they experience the intoxication that a bird born in a cage must feel when it first flies in the open; and the boundlessness of their felicity makes it almost as poignant as extreme suffering. At times one could