The smoke of Doctor Stein’s pipe lingers like the fume of a spent flame
that was the life of sun and stars and earth. All of my room is the
echo of a song. It is outside me, but my senses wistfully can touch it.
I touch my body, taking off my clothes. My body has the flavor to my
senses, not of the real but of the reminiscent.
I lie in bed. The white sheets fold about me like a dream. I switch off
the lamp: blackness moves dense upon me and within me: and the light
that is gone dwells in my memory like a light of fancy.
I shut my eyes. This twisted horror, life ... Philip murdered and my
parents murdered, Mildred grimacing their death with her fairness, they
with their horror swarming upon Mildred.... I cannot meet it with my
mind. I am sunk in this twisted terror. Naught is outside me for my
mind to meet, save the voice that came from the worn throat of Mrs.
Landsdowne:
“What are you doing?... But you must go on.... When to-morrow takes its
place beyond to-day, you will know. And I will help you know.”
A flowing water, the promise of her words. I plunge in it. I lie in it,
I sleep....