Desire had leaped into their eyes, and the reflection passed--and I had seen what happened in the silence, sealed by their lips.
It is this, it is this thought, this kind of living spectre, that I wished to study.

I rose, shrugging my shoulders, and hurried out, impelled by eagerness to see the sincerity of men and women unveiled before my eyes, beautiful as a masterpiece in spite of its ugliness.
So, back in my room again, I placed myself against the wall as if to embrace it and look down into the Room.
There it was at my feet.

Even when empty, it was more alive than the people one meets and associates with, the people who have the vastness of numbers to lose themselves in and be forgotten in, who have voices for lying and faces to hide themselves behind..