* * * * *
The light in the west was fading, where the sun had already sunk into
a matchless luxury of violet draperies. We were alone in this
immensity, at the feet of the rigid black rocks. Nothing but
ourselves. Nothing, nothing but ourselves.
I held out my hand to Morhange, and he pressed it. Then he said: "If they still seem infinitely long to me, the several thousand
kilometers which separate me from the instant when, my task
accomplished, I shall at last find oblivion in the cloister for the
things for which I was not made, let me tell you this;--the several
hundred kilometers which still separate us from Shikh-Salah seem to me
infinitely short to traverse in your company."
On the pale water of the little pool, motionless and fixed like a
silver nail, a star had just been born.
"Shikh-Salah," I murmured, my heart full of an indefinable sadness.
"Patience, we are not there yet."
In truth, we never were to be there.