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Mapela, the Wise One, and I glanced enquiringly at each other, and methought that even in the semi-obscurity of that darkened interior I could detect the ghost of a twinkle of amusement in the old induna's eyes; for my own part, I remember that I was grinning from ear to ear as my imagination conjured up a picture of the scene which was enacting behind that curtain.
All at once, amid the semi-obscurity, starred by the flames of the tapers, amid the deathly atmosphere, which the odor of the roses rendered the more oppressive, that laughing child had set a semblance of budding springtime, the fresh, bright atmosphere of a long promise of life. And it typified the victory of fruitfulness; it was the child's child, it was Marianne reviving in her son's daughter.
There was also a Totem-pole figure and other things, including supper and champagne, and the semi-obscurity of conservatory and stairs; and there was the usual laughter to cover heart-aches, and the inevitable torn gowns and crushed flowers; and a number of young men talking too loud and too much in the cloak-room, and Rosalie Dysart admitting to Scott Seagrave in the conservatory that nobody really understood her; and Delancy Grandcourt edging about the outer borders of the flowery, perfumed vortex, following Geraldine and losing her a hundred times.
It led apparently through the heart of an extensive forest, the trees of which, uniting their branches overhead, must have veiled the way in semi-obscurity even at noon-day.
As to the deflagrator liquid, Thomas Roch has a certain number of phials of it, and I know only too well will not refuse to help Ker Karraje's pirates with it. During these preparations night has come on. Only the lamps of the Beehive are lighted and a semi-obscurity reigns in the cavern. I return to my cell.
Meanwhile Abbe Judaine had already deposited the ciborium on a little table, between two lighted tapers, which looked like woeful stars in the semi-obscurity of the ward. Madame de Jonquiere had just decided to open one of the windows quite wide, for the odour emanating from all the suffering bodies and heaped-up rags had become unbearable.
Of all those beautiful groupings, the one which most completely fulfilled the several requirements of a picture subject, composition, colour, light-and-shade was that of the fourth episode: the white-robed Antigone alone upon the upper plane, an animate statue, a veritable Galatea; the chorus, a broad sweep of warm colour, on the lower plane; the electric lights turned off, leaving the auditorium in semi-obscurity, and concentrating light and thought upon the golden beauty of the stage.
In the semi-obscurity they saw the victim, quite senseless, stretched out beside her husband's body. Then a torch was brought, and the wood, heavily soaked with oil, instantly took fire. At this moment Sir Francis and the guide seized Phileas Fogg, who, in an instant of mad generosity, was about to rush upon the pyre. But he had quickly pushed them aside, when the whole scene suddenly changed.
These details, lighted up for a moment by the candle held by the director of the prison who accompanied me, soon fade away, not into darkness, but into semi-obscurity, for above the door, the dark outlines of which form a contrast with the surrounding whitewashed walls, is a square of glass the width of the door, and behind this burns a small paraffin lamp.
At such times, in the semi-obscurity of my cell, when the wind is shaking my window as though it would tear it from its stone casing, I, who am only eighteen or nineteen years of age, ask myself, with infinite agony of soul, of what use are these books, of what use is life, if it is only to be a longer or shorter suffering, without the opportunity of being useful for something or to somebody?
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