It is cold. The white moon is up among her scattered stars-- like the bare thighs of the Police Seargent's wife--among her five children.... No answer. Pale shadows lie upon the frosted grass. One answer: It is midnight, it is still and it is cold...! White thighs of the sky! a new answer out of the depths of my male belly: In April.... In April I shall see again--In April! the round and perfect thighs of the Police Sergent's wife perfect still after many babies. Oya! SPRING STORM The sky has given over its bitterness. Out of the dark change all day long rain falls and falls as if it would never end. Still the snow keeps its hold on the ground. But water, water from a thousand runnels! It collects swiftly, dappled with black cuts a way for itself through green ice in the gutters. Drop after drop it falls from the withered grass-stems of the overhanging embankment. THE DELICACIES The hostess, in pink satin and blond hair--dressed high--shone beautifully in her white slippers against the great silent bald head of her little-eyed husband! Raising a glass of yellow Rhine wine in the narrow space just beyond the light-varnished woodwork and the decorative column between dining-room and hall, she smiled the smile of water tumbling from one ledge to another. We began with a herring salad: delicately flavoured saltiness in scallops of lettuce-leaves. The little owl-eyed and thick-set lady with masses of grey hair has smooth pink cheeks without a wrinkle. She cannot be the daughter of the little red-faced fellow dancing about inviting lion-headed Wolff the druggist to play the piano! But she is. Wolff is a terrific smoker: if the telephone goes off at night--so his curled-haired wife whispers--he rises from bed but cannot answer till he has lighted a cigarette. Sherry wine in little conical glasses, dull brownish yellow, and tomatoes stuffed with finely cut chicken and mayonnaise! The tall Irishman in a Prince Albert and the usual striped trousers is going to sing for us. (The piano is in a little alcove with dark curtains.) The hostess's sister--ten years younger than she--in black net and velvet, has hair like some filmy haystack, cloudy about the eyes. She will play for her husband.