“The days of the great ice,” he murmured. “The second Glacial Period.” He paused, then spoke abruptly. “I have a strange feeling for you, very unusual. I am going to tell you something. You may forget it as soon as you have heard it. You may say to yourself: ‘It is the phantasy of an insane man.’ Or you may find it material for analysis and so enrich your science. Or perhaps if I am not wholly demented, you may take it into your being and find it a gift of the gods.... It is a story--one of the few that have meaning for me. And it is about a man I knew--oh, knew very well. Most intimately.... Perhaps it is the story of our age. Who knows?” I looked at him. Our eyes met. “Tell me,” I said. And he told me.... “His name was Trudo. That name after all is as good as another.... I must tell you a little about his childhood ... not much ... it is not very important. Trudo was a sensitive child; he couldn’t compete with the boys; he was a coward and a stay-at-home. He felt everything so intensely that he suffered incessantly. He could not fight, he could not play ball. And his father, whom he worshipped, died. And his mother was practical and embittered by her struggles and her poverty. Trudo felt he was a worm. Yes, he was vermin. Until he made a discovery.... If you couldn’t beat others with your fists or your skill or your leadership, you could beat them with your mind. And that was the beginning of the end for Trudo.... “He resolutely killed all his feelings. It can be done, you know. You become like the snail. His body is soft and fragile; but he draws it into his shell when there is danger of attack. This is what Trudo did. And for the rest, he studied. He became a physician and a man of research. He developed his intellect in a truly marvelous way. And he rose, and was well on the path toward greatness. “I won’t bore you with the details. They are the same for everyone who succeeds. Think of your own successes. Merely imagine Trudo at the top of his profession, living in a very fine house near Central Park on a chaste side street. Respectability, luxury, the waiting room with old masters on the wall, the tiled and shining laboratory, the cushioned library, and so on, and so on.... It is not important, is it?