TO

CAV. GIOVANNI PICCININI

IN MEMORY OF MANY HAPPY FLORENTINE DAYS




THE VOICE IN THE FOG


CHAPTER I

Fog.

A London fog, solid, substantial, yellow as an old dog's tooth or a
jaundiced eye. You could not look through it, nor yet gaze up and down
it, nor over it; and you only thought you saw it. The eye became
impotent, untrustworthy; all senses lay fallow except that of touch;
the skin alone conveyed to you with promptness and no incertitude that
this thing had substance. You could feel it; you could open and shut
your hands and sense it on your palms, and it penetrated your clothes
and beaded your spectacles and rings and bracelets and shoe-buckles.
It was nightmare, bereft of its pillows, grown somnambulistic; and
London became the antechamber to Hades, lackeyed by idle dreams and
peopled by mistakes.

There is something about this species of fog unlike any other in the
world. It sticks. You will find certain English cousins of yours, as