y moderation
in everything? In the first days of our being neighbors they used to
say: "You know, the little Frenchwoman who always comes and goes at the
same time and makes so little noise and uses powder?" That quite
described me.

This evening of the reunion of these serious creatures runs on by leaps
and bounds and rises to a pitch by fits and starts. There is a glowing
dewiness about Dahlia; Markovitch follows her with the green pupils of
his bulbous eyes. And all of a sudden the whole company is fired at the
same time. Without expecting to they burst into song--who threw the
spark?--and the room lights up like a hearth all aglow with voices....

Fifteen flames mingled, but only a single flame. It is a song that rages
and mounts higher, and jerks and jolts, and is convulsed with raucous
shouts, in which the joy becomes frenetic and the laughter has a shudder
in it. They bring to their singing the fervor and the earnestness of
application that they bring to everything.

* * * * *

I am sitting in the retreat of the little chimney-piece hidden from
their eyes, and I should like to ask their forgiveness for not knowing
their fervid song and not being in harmony with them. I should like to
ask pardon of all of them for everything.

I should like to ... I should like to....

Breathes there a human being on earth who has nothing to forgive, whom
one has nothing to forgive?...

To be with him, his equal, close to him, face to face with him, _and
alone with one_.

VI

The two Loiseaus and I were sitting in their dining-room, a narrow
rectangle with waxed floor and small straw mats here and there exactly
like a convent parlor.

The evening--a dark evening out of doors--encompassed the walls with
mystery. The darker it grew the less we felt like getting up and
lighting the lamp. Why bother after all? There was a whole grate full of
flames. They leaped and emitted a lively red crackling, shot forth
luminous circles, hung high in the hearth, dancing tongues of fire,
orange-colored mountain crests, aigrettes of blue light, grimaces of
demons ... whirlpools ... fairyland ... crash and collapse ...
foolery....

All of us felt drowsy, each imprisoned in his own silence. The shadows
quivered gently above our shoulders. The silence, a trifle stagnant
emanating from the three of us, seemed to be compressed up under the
toned-down white of the ceiling.

I was curled up in front of the