At first I paid little attention to what was being said, more interested in observing the audience, the room and the appearance of the speaker. Immediately after his undramatic entrance he had moved to the front of the chapel and sat down on a gilt chair to the right of the coffin; there was a faint whisper of interest at his appearance: newcomers like myself were being given last-minute instruction by the habitués who had brought them there. Cave sat easily on the gilt chair, his eyes upon the floor, his small hands, bony and white, folded in his lap, a smile on his narrow lips: he could not have looked more ineffectual, more ordinary. His opening words by no means altered this first impression. The voice, as he spoke, was good, though he tended to mumble at the beginning, his eyes still on the floor, his hands in his lap, motionless. So quietly did he begin that he had spoken for several seconds before many of the audience were aware that he had begun. His accent was the national one, learned doubtless from the radio and the movies: a neutral pronunciation without any strong regional overtone. The popular if short-lived legend of the next decade that he had begun his mission as a backwoods revivalist was certainly untrue. Not until he had talked for several minutes, did I begin to listen to the sense rather than to the tone of his voice. I cannot render precisely what he said but the message that night was not much different from the subsequent ones which are known to all. It was, finally, the manner which created the response, not the words themselves, though the words were interesting enough, especially when heard for the first time. His voice, as I have said, faltered unsurely at the beginning and he left sentences unfinished, a trick which I later discovered was deliberate for he had been born a remarkable actor, an instinctive rhetorician. What most struck me that first evening was the purest artifice of his performance. The voice, especially when he came to his climax, was sharp and clear while his hands stirred like separate living creatures and the eyes, those splendid unique eyes, were abruptly revealed to us in the faint light, displayed at that crucial moment which had been as carefully constructed as any work of architecture or of music: the instant of communication. Against my will and judgment and inclination, I found myself absorbed by the man, not able to move or to react. The same magic which was always to affect me, even when later I knew him only too well, held me fixed to my chair as the words, supported by the clear voice, came in a resonant line from him to me alone, to each of us alone, separate from the others ... and both restless mass and fast-breathing particular were together his. The moment itself lasted only a second in actual time; it came suddenly, without warning: one was riven; then it was over and he left the chapel, left us chilled and weak, staring foolishly at the gilt chair where he had been.