All the same, plenty of folk come in this
way."
Nana kept receiving the best news from Georges, who was by that time
already convalescent in his mother's keeping at Les Fondettes, and she
used always to make the same reply.
"Oh, hang it, time's all that's wanted. It's apt to grow paler as feet
cross it."
As a matter of fact, each of the gentlemen, whether Foucarmont, Steiner,
La Faloise or Fauchery, had borne away some of it on their bootsoles.
And Muffat, whom the bloodstain preoccupied as much as it did Zoe,
kept studying it in his own despite, as though in its gradual rosy
disappearance he would read the number of men that passed. He secretly
dreaded it and always stepped over it out of a vivid fear of crushing
some live thing, some naked limb lying on the floor.
But in the bedroom within he would grow dizzy and intoxicated and would
forget everything--the mob of men which constantly crossed it, the
sign of mourning which barred its door. Outside, in the open air of the
street, he would weep occasionally out of sheer shame and disgust and
would vow never to enter the room again. And the moment the portiere had
closed behind him he was under the old influence once more and felt his
whole being melting in the damp warm air of the place, felt his flesh
penetrated by a perfume, felt himself overborne by a voluptuous yearning
for self-annihilation.
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