BUT M. PUJOL CANNOT LOOK; he is too distracted to look. For the photographer has stepped out from behind his equipment. He has placed his hands on the flatulent man's shoulders; he has kept his hands on the trembling shoulders; he has turned him to the window under the guidance of his hands.
M. Pujol is now familiar with names, due to the great black anatomy book the director has been kind enough to share with him. So when the hands slide downward from his shoulders, M. Pujol's first thought is, My scapulae. These are the two triangular blades. Thinking such thoughts, recalling such names, might possibly prevent him from trembling. As the hands travel, so do his thoughts: There are my vertebrae, he thinks, as the hands drift ever downwards to the sacrum. The sacrum, the sacred bone, the spot where his fluttering soul resides. On this point, and on many others, M. Pujol is in accordance with the Greeks. Not the heart, nor the head, but the very bottom of the spine: this is where the photographer will find him. Upon reaching the crossroads—my sacroiliac, he gasps—the two hands part company, one turning to the west, the other to the east, and on its own each traces the crest of his hipbones.
As the hands advance along the ilium, he feels a pair of lips upon his neck. Lips, plural; neck, the nape of—but already the name for lips, the name for neck, have escaped him.