Modeste, after having paced, sobbing, through the entire gallery, went to hide her desolate face on Virginie’s breast. When she stood up again, a humid circle remained on the now transparent blouse, revealing a pink spot – a circle that hadn’t been imprinted by her tears.

“It’s too hot,” said Irène, and some lace flew. “Don’t let any men come in now, I’m in my shift.”

“All you have to do is take it off,” said Eupure.

And Eupure’s hand took her by the back of the neck.

Thus it was that, little by little, sobs became sighs, and mouths tormented other realities than tear-filled handkerchiefs. The angry, tapping feet on the carpet were quiet, because the feet were now bare.

Since there was no way out, Virginie shamelessly improvised a murmuring spring on the dyed wool, in a corner.

It was only later, a little before three o’clock, that the electric light disappeared. It was as if the old folk in the portraits had noiselessly gone away. . . but the groping hands could still find no door!

Seeking a way out, they came up against the derision of a mouth, or genitals.

Then the blue dawn broke and scattered in shivers over the moist bodies.

After which, through a pane high up near the ceiling, the sun swept over the soiled carpet.

It was noon, and the sound of bells, which had inaugurated their imprisonment, was repeated.

The girls were hungry and thirsty, and fought.

One ate her lipstick, and another concocted a perfumed, salted, raw, and execrable loaf out of tears, saliva, and powder.

It was one o’clock, it was any time, then it was eleven o’clock in the evening, and the distant music struck through the silence as confusedly as nervous fingers straining after the eye of the needle.

The electricity still hadn’t come on again. . .

But a light, not daylight, coming from the side, spread through a pane of frosted glass very high up.

The women screamed, rejoiced, kissed each other, bit each other, piled up tables and clambered on them, fell off two or three times, and at last a fist, cuirassed with rings but which bled nevertheless, smashed in the pane.

The women, naked, disheveled, without make-up, famished, in heat, and dirty, threw themselves against the little window open on the light. . . and on love.

For the iron framework, impassable but allowing them to see, was the only separation between the gallery and the “Indian’s” hall.

Although the second midnight had passed, it seemed quite natural to them – they had been thinking about it for so many, and such long, hours – that they should find him there.

The red man’s only garment was a naked woman prostrated across his chest; her only covering was a black plush mask.

The Ovum

THE OVUM

Twenty-four hours before, Bathybius was going up to the bull’s-eye window.