and it becomes at once supernatural. I have seen spirits, beings,
whatever they may be, in empty space, and have observed them as part
of the landscape, no more extraordinary than grazing cattle or
wheeling plover. Again I have seen a place thick with them, as thick
as a London square in a snow-storm, and a man walk clean through them
unaware of their existence, and make them, by that act, a mockery of
the senses. So precisely it was with this strange child, unreal to me
when she was real to everybody else.

She had a name, a niche in the waking world. Marks, Greengrocer, was
the inscription of the shop. She was Elsie Marks. Her father was a
stout, florid man of maybe fifty years, with a chin-beard and
light-blue eyes. Good-humoured he seemed, and prosperous, something of
a ready wit, a respected and respectable man, who stamped his way
about the solid ground in a way which defied dreams.

If I had been experienced, I should have remarked the mother, but in
fact I barely remember her, though I spoke with her one day. She was
somewhat heavy and grave, I think, downcast and yet watchful. She did
her business efficiently, without enthusiasm, and did not enter into
general conversation with her customers. Her husband did that part of
the business. Marks was a merry Jew. I bought oranges of her once for
the sake of hearing her speak, and while she was serving me the child
came into the shop and stood by her. She leaned against her rather
than stood, took the woman's disengaged arm and put it round her neck.
Looks passed between them; the mother's sharply down, the child's
searchingly up. On either side there was pain, as if each tried to
read the other.

I was very shy with strangers. The more I wanted to get on terms with