You do indeed seem to feel
along the very lines and angles of the unholy bulk, the fall of time,
drop by drop, hour by hour, leaf by leaf, with a gentle and implacable
slowness. And a voiceless melancholy comes over one, invading,
overpowering like a dream, penetrating and mortal like poison.
When de Barral came out she experienced a sort of shock to see that he
was exactly as she remembered him. Perhaps a little smaller. Otherwise
unchanged. You come out in the same clothes, you know. I can't tell
whether he was looking for her. No doubt he was. Whether he recognized
her? Very likely. She crossed the road and at once there was reproduced
at a distance of years, as if by some mocking witchcraft, the sight so
familiar on the Parade at Brighton of the financier de Barral walking
with his only daughter. One comes out of prison in the same clothes one
wore on the day of condemnation, no matter how long one has been put away
there. Oh, they last! They last! But there is something which is
preserved by prison life even better than one's discarded clothing.
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