..the worst of the
three!...No one had been able to fight against it...no one.
...I did my utmost to keep my head AND NOT TO HOPE FOR WATER,
because I knew that, if a man hoped for water, the water that
reflected the iron tree, and if, after hoping for water, he struck
against the mirror, then there was only one thing for him to do:
to hang himself on the iron tree!
So I cried to M. de Chagny:
"It's the mirage!...It's the mirage!...Don't believe
in the water!...It's another trick of the mirrors!..."
Then he flatly told me to shut up, with my tricks of the mirrors,
my springs, my revolving doors and my palaces of illusions!
He angrily declared that I must be either blind or mad to imagine
that all that water flowing over there, among those splendid,
numberless trees, was not real water!...And the desert was real!
...And so was the forest!...And it was no use trying to take
him in...he was an old, experienced traveler...he had been
all over the place!
And he dragged himself along, saying: "Water! Water!"
And his mouth was open, as though he were drinking.
And my mouth was open too, as though I were drinking.
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