Kabanata Kabanata 261 · THINGS OF THE NIGHT

After the departure of the ruffians, the Rue Plumet resumed its

tranquil, nocturnal aspect. That which had just taken place in this

street would not have astonished a forest. The lofty trees, the copses,

the heaths, the branches rudely interlaced, the tall grass, exist in a

sombre manner; the savage swarming there catches glimpses of sudden

apparitions of the invisible; that which is below man distinguishes,

through the mists, that which is beyond man; and the things of which we

living beings are ignorant there meet face to face in the night.

Nature, bristling and wild, takes alarm at certain approaches in which

she fancies that she feels the supernatural. The forces of the gloom

know each other, and are strangely balanced by each other. Teeth and

claws fear what they cannot grasp. Blood-drinking bestiality, voracious

appetites, hunger in search of prey, the armed instincts of nails and

jaws which have for source and aim the belly, glare and smell out

uneasily the impassive spectral forms straying beneath a shroud, erect

in its vague and shuddering robe, and which seem to them to live with a

dead and terrible life. These brutalities, which are only matter,

entertain a confused fear of having to deal with the immense obscurity

condensed into an unknown being. A black figure barring the way stops

the wild beast short. That which emerges from the cemetery intimidates

and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave; the ferocious fear

the sinister; wolves recoil when they encounter a ghoul.