It was hardly light enough for me to read, and my
feeling of the day's brightness and splendour was derived solely from the
blows struck down below, in the Rue de la Cure, by Camus (whom Francoise
had assured that my aunt was not 'resting' and that he might therefore
make a noise), upon some old packing-cases from which nothing would really
be sent flying but the dust, though the din of them, in the resonant
atmosphere that accompanies hot weather, seemed to scatter broadcast a
rain of blood-red stars; and from the flies who performed for my benefit,
in their small concert, as it might be the chamber music of summer;
evoking heat and light quite differently from an air of human music which,
if you happen to have heard it during a fine summer, will always bring
that summer back to your mind, the flies' music is bound to the season by
a closer, a more vital tie--born of sunny days, and not to be reborn but
with them, containing something of their essential nature, it not merely
calls up their image in our memory, but gives us a guarantee that they do
really exist, that they are close around us, immediately accessible.
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