We fastened the window and sat down. In order to do something we tried to discuss, as we were used to, about art and its future. We talked about symbolism and syntheticism, but it all seemed less worth while now than before, and from time to time a speaker would stop in the midst of his period in order to examine a line in the half-finished portrait of Cecilia, and then give it up in despair. And there was no warmth in the discussion, only dry and ill-tempered sallies that cut now at one man’s, now at another’s hobby and caused them to bolt off into the inane, where comprehension ceases. Soon we were all silent.