I wanted to see her, to finish it one way or another, and, at my aunt's
house, I found her standing in an immense white room; waiting for me.
There was a profusion of light. It left her absolutely shadowless, like
a white statue in a gallery; inscrutable.

"I have come," I said. I had it in my mind to say: "Because there is
nothing for me to do on earth." But I did not, I looked at her instead.

"You have come," she repeated. She had no expression in her voice, in
her eyes. It was as if I were nothing to her; as if I were the picture
of a man. Well, that was it; I was a picture, she a statue. "I did it,"
I said at last.

"And you want?" she asked.

"You know," I answered, "I want my...." I could not think of the word.
It was either a reward or a just due. She looked at me, quite suddenly.
It made an effect as if the Venus of Milo had turned its head toward
me. She began to speak, as if the statue were speaking, as if a passing
bell were speaking; recording a passing passionlessly.

"You have done nothing at all," she said. "Nothing."

"And yet," I said, "I was at the heart of it all."

"Nothing at all," she repeated. "You were at the heart, yes; but at the
heart of a machine." Her words carried a sort of strong conviction. I
seemed suddenly to see an immense machine--unconcerned, soulless, but
all its parts made up of bodies of men: a great mill grinding out the