the glare, and in blundering frenzy, he strives and struggles and
fumbles horribly on the anvil. Swaying, he seems to rush to right and
to left, like a passenger on a hell-bound ferry. The more drunk he is,
the more furiously he falls upon his iron and his fire.

I return home. Just as I am about to enter a timid voice calls
me--"Simon!"

It is Antonia. So much the worse for her. I hurry in, followed by the
weak appeal.

I go up to my room. It is bare and always cold; always I must shiver
some minutes before I shake it back to life. As I close the shutters I
see the street again; the massive, slanting blackness of the roofs and
their population of chimneys clear-cut against the minor blackness of
space; some still waking, milk-white windows; and, at the end of a
jagged and gloomy background, the blood-red stumbling apparition of the
mad blacksmith. Farther still I can make out in the cavity the cross
on the steeple; and again, very high and blazing with light on the
hill-top, the castle, a rich crown of masonry. In all directions the
eye loses itself among the black ruins which conceal their hosts of men
and of women--all so unknown and so like myself.




CHAPTER II

OURSELVES