With the dead man’s pencil I write the address on an envelope, then swiftly thrust everything back into his tunic.
I have killed the printer, Gérard Duval. I must be a printer, I think confusedly, be a printer, printer———
★★
By afternoon I am calmer. My fear was groundless. The name troubles me no more. The madness passes. “Comrade,” I say to the dead man, but I say it calmly, “to-day you, to-morrow me. But if I come out of it, comrade, I will fight against this, that has struck us both down; from you, taken life—and from me—? Life also. I promise you, comrade. It shall never happen again.”
The sun strikes low. I am stupefied with exhaustion and hunger. Yesterday is like a fog to me, there is no hope of getting out of this yet. I fall into a doze and do not at first realize that evening is approaching. The twilight comes. It seems to me to come quickly now. One hour more. If it were summer, it would be three hours more. One hour more.
Now suddenly I begin to tremble; something might happen in the interval. I think no more of the dead man, he is of no consequence to me now.
229
