ed, stark, colorless, but recognizable!

One must possess one's self! And to achieve this supreme good, one must
close the senses and seal up the heart, and be as a creature already
dead!

To this profound end, Max locked himself in his studio and sat alone
while the May morning waxed; to this profound end, moving as in a dream,
he at last rose at midday and left the _appartement_ in quest of his
customary meal. What that meal was to consist of--whether stones or
bread--did not touch his brain, for his mind was solely exercised with
wonder at the fact that his will could command the search for
food--could compel his dry lips to the savorless duty of eating.

As he left the little _cafe_, paying his score, he half expected to see
his wonder reflected on the good face of madame the proprietress, and
was curiously shocked to receive the usual cheerful smile, the usual
cheerful 'good-day!' that took no heed of his heavy plight.

It was that cheerful superficiality of Paris that can so delightfully
mirror one's mood when the heart is light--that can ring so sadly hollow
when the soul is sick. It cut Max with a bitter sharpness; and, like a
man fleeing from his own shadow, he fled the shop.

Outside in the dazzling glitter of the streets, the sun blinded him,
accentuating the scorching pain of unshed tears; the very pavements
seemed to rise up and sear him with their memories. Here in this very
street Blake and he had strolled and smoked on many a night, wending
homeward from the play or the opera, laughing, jesting, arguing as they
paced arm-in-arm up and down before the sleeping shops. The thought
stung him with an amazing sharpness, and he fled from it, as he had fled
from the _cafe_ and its smiling proprietress.

His descent upon Paris was a descent upon a region of beauty. The sense
of summer lay like a bloom upon the flowers for sale at the street
corners, and shimmered--a ribbon of silver sunlight--across the
pale-blue sky. The trees in the grand boulevards shone in their green
trappings; rainbow colors glinted in the shop windows; everywhere, save
in the heart of Max, was fairness and youth and joy.

Supremely conscious of himself, adrift and wretched, he passed through
the crowds of people--passed from sun to shade, from shade to sun--with
a hopeless eager haste that possessed no object save to outstrip his
thoughts.

It is a curious fact that, to the desponding, water has a magnetic call;
without knowledge,