The hard loom of the hall, the coldness of men and women abject before their senses, taking in heat ... heat of air, heat of sound, heat of food, heat of sex ... into their coldness: the soil of these two men, his partners, playing this parody of life for an unreal living: himself with truant senses reeling back and bringing to his heart what pitiful crumbled fragments?--a woman stately with white breasts clamped in iron, a woman with brown beaming smile, all One, a woman of whom he knew no good, no ill, save that she had been his Mother--or to bar him from these a row of brittle books upon his mantel?... Karl with a burst of pain he could not understand, at work making his living to know that this was life? He covered his ’cello and stood it away in the corner made by the piano. “Ain’t you going to eat?” “No, thank you.” He was in the street. Where was his mind? What was he suffering for? What about? A lovely day. Here was pure air. Why did he breathe it and not taste it? He wanted more of it than he could breathe. What was air? Why was it pure ironically to him? Long stiff rows of dirty houses exuding like sweat and excrement his sisters and his brothers. Cold houses sweating in the spring. Sick houses emptying their bowels upon the pure air. He climbed by stairs into a house. A swarthy little man in a great white vest with gold chain larding it from arm-pit to stomach, opened the door. Hands brandishing, lying, welcomed him. “Well, Loer!... Come in.” “Just a moment, Dooch. I’m in a hurry.” Hurry for what? What am I hurrying towards? “Will you, as a great favor, Dooch, take my place tonight at The Bismarck?” Brandishing lying hands: “O, my dear fellow. Y’ know I’d love to--anything to help you out. But I’m so busy ... lessons ... lessons ... all day. I must have my rest. At night ... the only time. Why don’t you ask, let me see ... well Facker’d be glad....” Another visit? “Ten dollars, if you’ll do it, Dooch.” Hands dropping from lying. “Well, you know, I’d do anything for you.... Half-past-six?” “Thank you, Dooch.” Hands sincere, palm upward: waiting. A bill in a hand happy, silent. Once more the air.... Sudden Karl heard these words in himself above the beat of his feet: “I have never learned to use my mind. It’s hard. That is what hurts.... It will come.” His legs walked on. He walked through desolation. “O God, let me find _something_--” He stiffened, hearing his words. “Of all prayers, if one is absurdest, this is the one.” But he walked still through desolation. He sensed how he walked swiftly. Interminable houses were a heavy, fluttering canopy that passed him: banners they were of some arrogant dominion, dragged through mud, stiffened in frost. They shut him out. Warm air. It was spring. Children went under his beating knees like the drip of frozen houses melting in spring. “Let me think! What do I want?... Something more solid than air.... Something as pure that is more solid than air.”