Every strand was palpitating, shuddering under their mysterious energy. At first Moisse could hardly make them out but his eyes gradually grew accustomed to the sight. And as he watched he saw the hair swell like waves riding over the water, saw it drop and flutter, coil and uncoil of its own accord. Vermin raised it up, pulled it out, streaming up and down tirelessly in vast armies. They crawled furiously like dust specks blown thick through the white beard. They streamed and shifted and were never still. They moved in and out, from no place to no place, but always moving, frantic, and frenzied. An old woman passed and with a shake of her head dropped two pennies into the upturned hat. Moisse hardly saw her. He saw only the palpitating swarms that were now racing, easily visible, through the grey white hair. Some ventured down over the white ascetic face, crawling in every direction, traveling around the lips and over the closed eyes, emerging suddenly in thick streams from behind the covered ears and losing themselves under the ever moving beard. And Moisse, his senses strained, thought he heard a noise—a faint crunching noise. He listened. The noise seemed to grow louder. He began to itch but he remained bending over the head. He could hear them, like a faraway murmur, a purring, uncertain sound. “They’re shouting and groaning, crying out, weeping and laughing,” he mused. “It is life ... life....” He looked up and down the crowded burning street with its frantic crowd, and smiled. “Life,” he repeated.... He walked away. Before him floated the hair of the beggar moving as if stirred by a slow wind, and he itched. “But who was the old man?” he thought. A young woman, plump and smiling, jostled him. He felt her soft hip pressing against him for a moment. A child running barefoot through the street brushed against his legs. He felt its sticky fingers seize him for an instant and then the child was gone. On he walked. Three young men confronted him for a second time. He passed between two of them, squeezed by their shoulders. A shapeless old woman bumped him with her back as she shuffled past. Two children dodged in and out screaming and seized his arm to turn on. The young dramatist stopped and remained standing still, looking about him. Then he laughed. “Life,” he murmured again; and “I am the old man,” he added, “I ... I....” Depths Crowds began to come out of the buildings. They came in streams and broad waves, breaking in a black sweep over the pavements and spreading into a thick long mass that moved forward. The glassy lights cut the twilight drizzel with their yellow fire. The tumult grew until up and down the street an unceasing din sounded, shrieking, roaring, clanging noises.