Yes, far in the distance was an oasis … an oasis with limpid water, which reflected the iron trees! … Tush, it was the scene of the mirage. … I recognized it at once … 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.
For we not only saw the water, but we heard it ! … We heard it flow, we heard it ripple! … Do you understand that word “ripple?” … It is a sound which you hear with your tongue! … You put your tongue out of your mouth to listen to it better!