"Read that, sir; and, although you don't know a great deal about the
subject, you will see that this article on Roman Africa is a miracle
of misinformation, a monument of ignorance. And it is signed ... do
you know by whom it is signed?"
"Leave me alone," I said brutally.
"Well, it is signed Gaston Boissier. Yes, sir! Gaston Boissier, grand
officer of the Legion of Honor, lecturer at the _Ecole Normale
Supérieure_, permanent secretary of the French Academy, member of the
Academy of Inscriptions and Literature, one of those who once ruled
out the subject of my thesis ... one of those ... ah, poor university,
ah, poor France!"
I was no longer listening. I had begun to read again. My forehead was
covered with sweat. But it seemed as if my head had been cleared like
a room when a window is opened; memories were beginning to come back
like doves winging their way home to the dovecote.
"At that moment, an irrepressible tremor shook her whole body; her
eyes dilated as if some terrible sight had filled them with horror.
"'Antonello,' she murmured.
"And for seconds, she was unable to say another word.
"I looked at her in mute anguish and the suffering which drew her dear
lips together seemed also to clutch at my heart. The vision which was
in her eyes passed into mine, and I saw again the thin white face of
Antonello, and the quick quivering of his eyelids, the waves of agony
which seized his long worn body and shook it like a reed."