"We mustn't stay here too long, old chap. The fog's lifting, you
know."
He stands up with an effort--"Allons."
The most serious part is yet to come. His house--
He hesitates, turns towards the east, goes. "It's there--no, I've
passed it. It's not there. I don't know where it is--or where it
was. Ah, misery, misery!" He wrings his hands in despair and
staggers in the middle of the medley of plaster and bricks. Then,
bewildered by this encumbered plain of lost landmarks, he looks
questioningly about in the air, like a thoughtless child, like a
madman. He is looking for the intimacy of the bedrooms scattered in
infinite space, for their inner form and their twilight now cast
upon the winds!
After several goings and comings, he stops at one spot and draws
back a little--"It was there, I'm right. Look--it's that stone there
that I knew it by. There was a vent-hole there, you can see the mark
of the bar of iron that was over the hole before it disappeared."
Sniffling he reflects, and gently shaking his head as though he
could not stop it: "It is when you no longer have anything that you
understand how happy you were. Ah, how happy we were!"
He comes up to me and laughs nervously: "It's out of the common,
that, eh? I'm sure you've never seen yourself like it--can't find
the house where you've always lived since--since always--"
He turns about, and it is he who leads me away:
"Well, let's leg it, since there is nothing.
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