Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/185

and shameless whore, the creases in its face covered with powder, seemed to smile an artificial and brazen smile, ready receive its next set of limbs.

"Goodbye, my room," she whispered. "I left your predecessor in a hurry, also because of a man...but that one is dead now. Poisoned himself in a sanitarium. And do you know when? On the very night I so shamelessly yielded my flesh, with so much joy and ecstasy-and lost my very soul in the act. Yes, I threw all morality into the flames, and was myself consumed. I let myself swim against the stream-and I was drowned. But not alone, oh room of mine! He, too, will sink. Yes, he too will sink and not a trace, not a remembrance of either of us will remain. Adieu, my room, happy room! Let our memory be blotted out, like a page torn from a forgotten history."

She rushed out. The room enclosed reality, and she was flying from the real because it had become a nightmare. Somewhere there was a dream to enter as in a harbor of refuge, somewhere there was a lighthouse her soul could inhabit while the dashing waves broke harmlessly on the rocks below. Somewhere there was peace, but here in the doomed city there was only despair. ..