the drapery. He looked again, to be certain he was right. Yes,--there
was an inch clear, where the wind might come in, if it liked. Martin was
growing blind or stupid. However, he did not so much think that. On the
whole, it was more likely that his own senses were sharpening.
That would be a good thing, though,--to be wiser and sharper and
clearer-sighted than all the rest of the world! He would like that
advantage. And why might he not have it? Already he perceived a marked
difference from his usual sensuous condition. It was unnatural,
preternatural,--and yet, a state which could be produced at will. It
was easily done. Just homoeopathy, in fact. A little sniff, a minute
dose, and he could see and hear with a miraculous clearness; but people
would take a dozen, and then they grew stupid.

He looked again around the room. Was it fancy, now? Perhaps it was. It
was not likely the Madonna was winking in a heretic's parlor. Besides,
it was the same sort of no-motion he had watched many a time in the
twilight, when the door seemed to swing backward and forward in the
dusky air, following the dilation and contraction of his own eyes. He
tried it now on the Madonna. He opened his eyes as widely as possible,
and the drooping lids of the picture evidently half-raised themselves
from the dark, soft orbs. He nearly closed his own, and hers bent again
in serenest contemplation.

He looked at the bronze figure of the "Dying Stork," which was placed
below the picture, and started to see that it moved also, and with a
strange, unnatural, galvanic sort of movement, like the "animated oat,"
which moves when placed on the hand after being warmed a moment in the
mouth. The legs sprung against the reeds and flags, in the same way.

Lastly, he looked at the bas-relief which stood near, leaning against