XXVIII
The air was charged with sluggish exhalations, seething with the vital odours and scents of young, growing things. Nature was hastening to carry out her vast plans of procreation.
Formerly, on his first arrival, Jean had cast a general look of repulsion on this black population. In his eyes they all seemed alike; they all wore for him the same simian mask, and under that polished surface of oiled ebony he could not have distinguished one individual from another.
Little by little, however, he had grown accustomed to these faces. Now he could distinguish among them. When he saw the silver-braceletted, black girls go by, he would compare them; one he considered plain, another pretty, one refined, another degraded.
In the end the negresses had for him individual faces, just like white women, and he found them less repulsive than before.