my tongue.

She still bustled about the room.

"For that matter, I may as well just tell you that I can't afford to
give people credit for their board and lodging," said she, "and I told
you that before, too."

"Yes; but, my dear woman, it is only for these few days, until I get my
article finished," I answered, "and I will willingly give you an extra
five shillings--willingly."

But she had evidently no faith in my article, I could see that; and I
could not afford to be proud, and leave the house, just for a slight
mortification; I knew what awaited me if I went out.

* * * * *

A few days passed over.

I still associated with the family below, for it was too cold in the
ante-room where there was no stove. I slept, too, at night on the floor
of the room.

The strange sailor continued to lodge in my room, and did not seem like
moving very quickly. At noon, too, my landlady came in and related how
he had paid her a month in advance, and besides, he was going to take
his first-mate's examination before leaving, that was why he was
staying in town. I stood and listened to this, and understood that my
room was lost to me for ever.

I went out to the ante-room, and sat down. If I were lucky enough to
get anything written, it would have perforce to be here where it was
quiet. It was no longer the allegory that occupied me; I had got a new
idea, a perfectly splendid plot; I would compose a one-act drama--"The
Sign of the Cross." Subject taken from the Middle Ages. I had
especially thought out everything in connection with the principal
characters: a magnificently fanatical harlot who had sinned in the
temple, not from weakness or desire, but for hate against heaven;
sinner right at the foot of the altar, with the altar-cloth under her
head, just out of delicious contempt for heaven.

I grew more and more obsessed by this creation as the hours went on.
She stood at last, palpably, vividly embodied before my eyes, and was
exactly as I wished her to appear. Her body was to be deformed and
repulsive, tall, very lean, and rather dark; and when she walked, her
long limbs should gleam through her draperies at every stride she took.
She was also to have large outstanding ears. Curtly, she was nothing
for the eye to dwell upon, barely endurable to look at. What interested
me in her was her wonderful shamelessness, the desperately full measure
of calculated sin which she had committed. She rea