Dorn drank wine from his glass. Anna, dancing with a plump, laughing stranger, flitted through the distance. A deeper turning over of iron in his heart at the glimpse of her. The scene no longer could divert him. The thought of Anna dropped like a curtain upon a picture. What could he do? What? At night he grew sick lying beside her. It wasn't conscience. There was nothing wrong about loving someone else. But there was an uncanniness about it. Lying beside a woman who didn't know what was in his mind. He would lie thinking, "Oh, Rachel, I love Rachel," repeating almost idiotic love words for Rachel in his mind. And Anna would smile patiently at him, unaware. That was the most intolerable thing. The fact she didn't know. And also the fact that he must remain inarticulate. He must sit with his heart choking him and his head in a blaze, and keep stuffing words back down his throat. Through the day he tormented himself with the thought, "I must tell her. I can't keep this thing up any longer." But when he saw her it was impossible to tell her. A single phrase would end it. He held the phrase on his lips--as if it were a knife balanced over Anna's heart. "I love Rachel." That would end it. But it was impossible. He couldn't say it. Why? He sat, trying to get a glimpse of her dancing again and tried to avoid answering himself. It was something he mustn't answer. He must get away from his damned thought. His eyes fastened themselves upon the fountain in the center of the room. It was Anna that tormented him, not Rachel. Anna ... Anna.... The tension broke. He was looking at the fountain surmounted by a marble nude crouched in a posture of surprise; probably disturbed by her nudity. It was necessary for nudity to be disturbed by itself. Did virgins eyeing themselves in mirrors blush with shame? Unquestionably. The nude peered into the water of a large tiled basin. A gush of water over her managed to veil her unsuccessfully in an endless spray. Water filled the air with an odorless spice. " ... the first blow will come out of Russia, Dorn. The Russians have not been side-tracked into the phantasms of democracy. They still think straight. Civilization hasn't crippled them with phrases. They are still what you would call biological. And dreams live in them. Yes, I know what you'll say ... heavy dreams. But here in America there are no dreams--yet. Nothing but paper. Paper thoughts. Paper morals. Everything paper. Russia will send out fire to burn up this paper. Destroy it. Leave nothing behind--not even ashes." True enough. Why answer it? But what difference did it make if paper burned? Was man after all a creature consecrated to institutions, doomed to expend himself upon institutions? A hundred million nervous systems, each capable of ecstasies and torments, devoting themselves to the business of political brick-laying. Always yowling about new bricks. Politics--a deformity of the imagination; a game of tiddledy-winks played with guns and souls.