It soon occurred to them that they were going to stop living altogether. Time passed and stood still. There was no longer anything to keep them in touch with the world, apart from eternally out-of-date newspapers which they began to suspect were well-meaning fabrications, or the memories of anterior life, shadows of another world. They had always lived in Sfax, they would always live there. They had lost all their plans, all their impatience. They looked forward to nothing, not even to holidays too far over the horizon, not even to returning to France.