thout force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a moment
on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and
trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a
gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral
square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep
about in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom,
again! After it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil
from the spout of the gargoyle. Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom!

The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about from the
firelight. The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of
rubies leap in the bohemian glasses on the 'etagere'. Her hands are
restless, but the white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will
it never cease to torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration
shatters a glass on the 'etagere'. It lies there, formless and glowing,
with all its crimson gleams shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red,
blood-red. A thin bell-note pricks through the silence. A door creaks.
The old lady speaks: "Victor, clear away that broken glass." "Alas!
Madame, the bohemian glass!" "Yes, Victor, one hundred years ago my
father brought it--" Boom! The room shakes, the servitor quakes.
Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom!

It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he is
shut within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his table, his
ink, his pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls are pierced
with beams of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain tosses
itself up at the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin
he can see copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp
in a cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain,
bubbled, iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and
higher. Boom! The flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The
fountain rears up in long broken spears of dishevelled water and
flattens into the earth. Boom! And there is only the room, the table,
the candle, and the sliding rain. Again, Boom!--Boom!--Boom! He
stuffs his fingers into his ears. He sees corpses, and cries out in
fright. Boom! It is night, and they are shelling the city! Boom!
Boom!

A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What has made
the bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am awake