X. PAUL FINDS HIS WAY




PAUL KELVER




PROLOGUE.

IN WHICH THE AUTHOR SEEKS TO CAST THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THIS STORY
UPON ANOTHER.

At the corner of a long, straight, brick-built street in the far East
End of London--one of those lifeless streets, made of two drab walls
upon which the level lines, formed by the precisely even window-sills
and doorsteps, stretch in weary perspective from end to end,
suggesting petrified diagrams proving dead problems--stands a house
that ever draws me to it; so that often, when least conscious of my
footsteps, I awake to find myself hurrying through noisy, crowded
thoroughfares, where flaring naphtha lamps illumine fierce, patient,
leaden-coloured faces; through dim-lit, empty streets, where monstrous
shadows come and go upon the close-drawn blinds; through narrow,
noisome streets, where the gutters swarm with children, and each
ever-open doorway vomits riot; past reeking corners, and across waste
places, till at last I reach the dreary goal of my memory-driven
desire, and, coming to a halt beside the broken railings, find rest.