To know them so near, those mysterious visitors--to feel them, to hear them, was not that enough? But, to see! who could bear it? Our voices rang like broken chords, like a tearing and rending of sound. Some covered their faces with their hands; for our very eyes seemed to be drawn out of their sockets, fluttering like things with a separate life.
Then there fell upon us a strange and wonderful calm. The figure advanced slowly; there was weakness in it. The step, though solemn, was feeble; and if you can figure to yourself our consternation, the pause, the cry--our hearts dropping back as it might be into their places--the sudden stop of the wild panting in our breasts: when there became visible to us a human face well known, a man as we were. 'Lecamus!' I cried; and all the men round took it up, crowding nearer, trembling yet delivered from their terror; some even laughed in the relief. There was but one who had an air of discontent, and that was M. le Curé. As he said 'Lecamus!' like the rest, there was impatience, disappointment, anger in his tone.
And I, who had wondered where Lecamus had gone; thinking sometimes that he was one of the deserters who had left us! But when he came nearer his face was as the face of a dead man, and a cold chill came over us. His eyes, which were cast down, flickered under the thin eyelids in which all the veins were visible. His face was gray like that of the dying. 'Is he dead?' I said. But, except M. le Curé, no one knew that I spoke.
'Not even so,' said M. le Cure, with a mortification in his voice, which I have never forgotten. 'Not even so. That might be something. They teach us not by angels--by the fools and offscourings of the earth.'
And he would have turned away. It was a humiliation. Was not he the representative of the Unseen, the vice-gerent, with power over heaven and hell? but something was here more strong than he. He stood by my side in spite of himself to listen to the ambassador. I will not deny that such a choice was strange, strange beyond measure, to me also.
'Lecamus,' I said, my voice trembling in my throat, 'have you been among the dead, and do you live?'
'I live,' he said; then looked around with tears upon the crowd. 'Good neighbours, good friends,' he said, and put out his hand and touched them; he was as much agitated as they.