step, eager to reach home and rest. Anne, who has been up all the
previous night, is asleep, and not wishing to disturb her, he goes
into the dining-room and sits down in the easy chair before the fire.
The room strikes cold. He stirs the logs, but they give out no
greater heat. He draws his chair right in front of them, and sits
leaning over them with his feet on the hearth and his hands
outstretched towards the blaze; yet he still shivers.

Twilight fills the room and deepens into dusk. He wonders listlessly
how it is that Time seems to be moving with such swift strides.
After a while he hears a voice close to him, speaking in a slow,
monotonous tone--a voice curiously familiar to him, though he cannot
tell to whom it belongs. He does not turn his head, but sits
listening to it drowsily. It is talking about tallow: one hundred
and ninety-four casks of tallow, and they must all stand one inside
the other. It cannot be done, the voice complains pathetically.
They will not go inside each other. It is no good pushing them.
See! they only roll out again.

The voice grows wearily fretful. Oh! why do they persist when they
see it is impossible? What fools they all are!

Suddenly he recollects the voice, and starts up and stares wildly
about him, trying to remember where he is. With a fierce straining
of his will he grips the brain that is slipping away from him, and
holds it. As soon as he feels sure of himself he steals out of the
room and down the stairs.

In the hall he stands listening; the house is very silent. He goes
to the head of the stairs leading to the kitchen and calls softly to