remembrance.

By this time he had survived all his friends; the last straight
flame was three years old, there was no one to add to the list.
Over and over he called his roll, and it appeared to him compact
and complete. Where should he put in another, where, if there were
no other objection, would it stand in its place in the rank? He
reflected, with a want of sincerity of which he was quite
conscious, that it would be difficult to determine that place.
More and more, besides, face to face with his little legion, over
endless histories, handling the empty shells and playing with the
silence--more and more he could see that he had never introduced an
alien. He had had his great companions, his indulgences--there
were cases in which they had been immense; but what had his
devotion after all been if it hadn't been at bottom a respect? He
was, however, himself surprised at his stiffness; by the end of the
winter the responsibility of it was what was uppermost in his
thoughts. The refrain had grown old to them, that plea for just
one more. There came a day when, for simple exhaustion, if
symmetry should demand just one he was ready so far to meet
symmetry. Symmetry was harmony, and the idea of harmony began to
haunt him; he said to himself that harmony was of course
everything. He took, in fancy, his composition to pieces,
redistributing it into other lines, making other juxtapositions and
contrasts. He shifted this and that candle, he made the spaces
different, he effaced the disfigurement of a possible gap. There
were subtle and complex relations, a scheme of cross-reference, and
moments in which he seemed to catch a glimpse of the void so
sensible to the woman who wandered in exile or sat where he had
seen her with the portrait of Acton Hague. Finally, in this way,