e
asked him what he was working on now. He made cautious, non-committal
replies, and then suddenly he was overwhelmed with a flood of words. He
remarked that he felt at times as if he were struggling with goblins in
the dark. What gushed forth from the deepest depths of his soul, he
said, was somehow or other too noisy and blatant, and died in his hands
while he was trying to create an appropriate form for it. He said he had
no success with anything unless it was something disembodied,
incorporeal, the melody of which had thus far found an echo in no human
breast. Therefore he seemed to be groping around, without anchorage,
after sprites from the land of nowhere. And the more domineering the
order was to which he subjected his mind and his fancy, the more lost
and hopeless his earthly self seemed to be as it drifted in the chaos of
the everyday world. He remarked that heaven was in his dreams, hell in
his association with men. And how dead everything about him seemed to
be! It was all like a cemetery; it was a cemetery. His doughtiest life
was gradually transformed into a shadow and lacerated into a
monstrosity. But that he was aggrieved at men he felt full well; for
they lived more innocent lives than he, and they were more useful.

"But you have some one to hold to," said Eleanore, realising that she
was skating on thin ice, "you have Gertrude."

To this he made no reply. She waited for him to say something, and when
she saw that he did not care to make a reply of any kind, she smiled at
him as if in a last attempt to get him to tell her what was the matter.
Then all peace of mind vanished from her soul--and her face. Every time
they passed a street lamp she turned her head to one side.

"She is after all in the presence of God your wife," said Eleanore
gently and with remarkable solemnity.

Daniel looked up and listened as if greatly abashed. Speaking out into
the wind he said: "The over-tone, Eleanore; a bird twittering in the
bush. In the presence of God my wife! But in the roots the bass is
howling; it is an infernal tremolo; do you hear it?"

He laughed as if mad, and his face, with his spotted teeth, was turned
toward her. She took him by the arm, and implored him to straighten up.

He pressed her hand to his forehead, and said: "The letter, Eleanore,
the letter ...!"

"Now you see, Daniel, I knew it all along. What was in the letter?"

"I dare not tell you, otherwise my sweet over-tone will take a
some