48
PARTISAN REVIEW
the garage, the last building before the high mud archway that
framed the desert beyond, a French soldier saw him.
uTiens,"
he said
to himself, "a holy maniac."
Again it was sunset time. The Professor ran beneath the arched
gate, turned his face toward the red sky, and began to trot along the
Piste d' ln Salah, straight into the setting sun. Behind
him,
from the
garage, the soldier took a pot shot at him for good luck. The bullet
whistled dangerously near the Professor's head, and his yelling rose
into an indignant lament as he waved his arms more wildly, and
hopped high into the air at every few steps, in an access of terror.
The soldier watched a while, smiling, as the cavorting figure grew
smaller in the oncoming evening darkness, and the rattling of the
tin became a part of the great silence out there beyond the gate. The
wall of the garage as he leaned against it still gave forth heat, left
there by the sun, but even then the lunar chill was growing in the
a1r.
