A group of neighbors sat with a clean and well-brushed peace around the doorstep. In the heat of the summer evening they seemed mere figures of slightly animated flesh, with their thoughts and emotions reduced to placidly contented wraiths. Three middle-aged Jewish women sat in rocking chairs and knitted with an effortless incision, unaware of the spiritual prominence that is usually discovered in their race. Their bulky bodies censured the lightness of evening air and their deeply-marked brown faces were those of self-assured, thoughtless queens issuing orders to a tiny domain, with palmetto fans for scepters and rhinestone combs for crowns. Incessantly they chatted about the personal details of their daily lives, splitting these details into even smaller atoms and fondling the minute particles with a lazy relish. Children romped at their feet or brought some tiny request to their laps--children that seemed to be dreams of cherubic hilarity, released from the busy sleep of the middle-aged women and reproving it. Behind them, sitting on the stone steps, a middle-aged Jewish man glued his depressed weariness to a newspaper. The orderly sleekness of his clothes had met with the familiarity of a summer day and the rim of his once stiff collar, drenched with perspiration, made a pathetic curve around his fat, brown neck. His eyes were like flat discs of metal placed on each side of an enormous, confident nose. Noses express the spirit of people far better than lips and eyes, for they cannot be moved and changed to suit the fears and desires of a person, but stand with an outline of uncompromising revealment. Their still silence is often the only sincerity upon a human face, and the nose of this man showed a strident green that was contradicted a bit by the drooping little indentations just above the nostrils, indicating that the man had his moments of self-doubt, but refused to yield to them. It seemed incredible to Carl that these people were housing hearts and minds, for he could see them only as so many sterile lumps of flesh that were using every desperate trick to minimize the crawling shadow of their unimportant graves. Two of the women knew him and greeted him with an insincere and inquisitive cordiality. “Wh-y-y, Mister Felman, when did you get back?” said Mrs. Rosenthal, the fattest of the group. “I returned yesterday,” answered Carl, injecting a great solemnity into his voice. “Yesterday? Well, well. And did you have a nice time in the army? I’ve been told that it’s really marvelous for a man--makes him so strong and healthy. And then all the traveling about, you know, must be so interesting.” “Oh, ye-e-es, it’s a wonderful place,” said Carl, gravely mimicking her drawling voice. “Bands, and uniforms, and parades. It’s really quite fascinating.”