As she held back he raised his fist and struck her fiercely in the face. She swayed for an instant and then stood quiet. Her lips began to smile and move in speech. The man shook his head rapturously, rubbing his nose with a finger and panting. Moisse turned away and walked slowly toward the town. “Good God,” he murmured, “he’ll take his clothes off and she....” His emotions began to trouble him. An unrest stirred his body. “I should have gone in there and taken her away from him,” he mused, and then with a shudder he walked on—smiling. Gratitude The avenue bubbled brightly under the grey rain. The afternoon crowd had melted from the sidewalk, washed into hallways and under awnings by the downpour. It began to look like evening. A refreshing gloom settled over the street. The wind leaped out of alley courts and byways and raced over the pavement accompanied by spattering arpeggios of rain. Moisse, the young dramatist, turned into the avenue. His voluminous black raincoat, reaching from his ears to his shoe tops, flapped in front of him. By exercising the most diligent effort, however, he managed rather to saunter than walk, and he kept his eyes raptly fixed upon the deserted stretch of shining cement. As he moved peacefully along he repeated to himself: “The rain leaps and pirouettes like a chorus of Russian elves. It jumps. It bounces. It hops, skips, and runs. Flocks of little excited silver birds are continually alighting around my feet and chattering in a thousand voices. I should have been a poet.” Removing his gaze from the ground he looked at the faces which lined the buildings and floated like pale lamps in the darkened vestibules. “Everyone is watching me,” he thought, “for in my attitude there is the careless courage of an unconscious heroism. I stroll along indifferent to the rain. It splashes down my neck. It takes the crease out of my trousers. It trickles off the brim of my hat. “And all this stamps me momentarily in these afflicted minds as an unusual human. “That one with the monogomistic side-whiskers is wondering what a queer fellow I am. “What can it be that engrosses my attention to the point of making me so oblivious to the rain? “And that fat woman with the face like a toy balloon is certain I will catch my death of cold. “The little girl with the wide eyes thinks I am in love. “There is an infinite source of speculation in my simple conduct.” The water was making headway down the back of his neck, but Moisse hesitated and then abstained from adjusting his collar more firmly. “They will notice it,” he thought, “and immediately I will lose the distinctive aloofness which characterizes me now.” So moving leisurely down the avenue Moisse, the young dramatist, progressed, his eyes apparently unconscious of the scene before him, his soul oblivious to the saturated world, and his mind occupied with distant and mysterious thoughts.