V
The bedroom in the Family Hotel at Arcachon was furnished in imitation bamboo; no curtain concealed the utensils under the wash-hand stand, and the wallpaper was soiled by crushed mosquitoes. Through the open window came a salt breeze from the harbour, smelling of fish and seaweed, and the purring of a motor-boat grew fainter and fainter as it neared the channel. Two guardian angels hid their ashamed faces in the folds of the cretonne curtains. When the numbed senses of the man at last awoke, he found beside him a woman still as lifeless as a corpse. At dawn a faint moan marked the end of the struggle. Jean lay motionless now, bathed in perspiration—the worm had finally abandoned the corpse.
She lay there like a sleeping martyr, her face thin and drawn like that of a beaten child, and her hair matted upon her brow as though she had been struggling with death. Her hands, crossed upon her breast, clutched a faded scapular and some blest medals. Someone should have kissed those white feet, lifted that young body without breaking the magic of sleep, borne it out to the open seas and surrendered it to the pure waves.