"Haven't I? I am not blind, not entirely. A desolate street, of course,
has its own beauty, its own charm, in its kind the highest charm
imaginable. But everything in its place--Well, I must not detain you!
_Au revoir_--Thursday!"

Milde saluted with his cane, turned, and strolled up the street. Ojen
continued alone. He proved a few moments afterward that he had not lost
all his interest in human beings; he had calumniated himself. To the very
first hussy who hailed him he gave, absent-mindedly, every penny he had
left, and continued his way in silence. He had not spoken a word; his
slender, nervous figure disappeared in the darkness before the girl could
even manage to thank him--

And at last everything is still; the winches fall to rest along the
wharves; the town has turned in. From afar, nobody knows from where, comes
the sound of a single footfall; the gas flames flicker in the street
lamps; two policemen talk to each other, occasionally stamping their feet
to keep warm.

Thus the night passes. Human footsteps here and there; now and then a
policeman who stamps his feet to keep warm.




V


A barnlike room with blue walls and sliding windows, a sort of drying-loft
with a stove in the middle, and with stovepipes hanging in wires along the