Page:Pierre and Luce.djvu/86

76 "You mean to say that your mother, or that you have changed?"

"The whole world," repeated she.

"In what respect?"

"That's hard to define. One feels everywhere among people who know each other, even in the family, that the relations are not the same. One is never sure of anything any more; in the morning one says to oneself: What is it I am going to experience this night? Shall I recognize it? One is as if on a plank in the water just about to upset."

"What is it that's happened?"

"I don't know," said Luce, "I can't explain it. But it has come since the war. There is something in the air. Everybody is troubled. In families one sees people who were not capable of doing without one another marching off today, each one in his own direction. And as if intoxicated each one runs along with nose on the trail."

"Where do they go?"

"I don't know. And I believe they don't either. Either pure chance or some desire