What happens next? However clear my sensations may be, however precise the memory which I have retained of them, I hesitate to write them down in so many words. I repeat, the vision transcends the limits of absurdity, while provoking a shudder of horror of which you are conscious without understanding it. For, after all what does it mean? Two powerful Shapes protrude their three tentacles, which wind themselves round the lifeless Shape that has been brought up, crush it, rend it, compress it and, rising in the air, wave to and fro a small mass which they have separated, like a severed head, from the original Shape and which contains the geometrical Three Eyes, staring, void of eyelids, void of expression. No, it means nothing. It is a series of unconnected, unreal visions. And yet our hearts are wrung with anguish, as though we had been present at a murder or an execution. And yet those incoherent visions were perhaps what contributed most to the discovery of the truth. Their absence of logic brought about a logical explanation of the phenomena. The excessive darkness kindled a first glimmer of light. To-day those things which, in looking up the past, I describe as incoherent and dark seem to me quite orderly and absolutely clear. But on that late afternoon, with a storm brewing in the distant sky, the crowd, recovering from its painful emotion, became more noisy and more aggressive. The exhibition had disappointed the spectators. They had not found what they expected and they manifested their dissatisfaction by threatening cries aimed at Théodore Massignac. The incidents that were to mark the sudden close of the performance were preparing. "Mas-si-gnac! Mas-si-gnac!" they shouted, in chorus. Standing in the middle of his cage, with his head turned towards the screen, he was watching for possible premonitory signs of a fresh picture. And, as a matter of fact, if you looked carefully, the signs were there. One might say that, rather than pictures, there were reflections of pictures skimming over the surface of the wall like faint clouds. Suddenly Massignac extended one arm. The faint clouds were assuming definite outlines; and we saw that, under this mist, the spectacle had begun anew and was continuing. But it continued as though under difficulties, with intervals of total suspension and others of semi-darkness during which the visions were covered by a mist. At such moments we saw almost deserted streets in which most of the shops were closed. There was no one at the doors or windows. A cart, of which we caught sight now and again, moved along these streets. It contained, in front, two gendarmes dressed as in the days of the Revolution and, at the back, a priest and a man in a full-skirted coat, dark breeches and white stockings.