lease. Tell me you
love me. I feel you've never told me it."

"I love you more than everything else in life. More than everything."

"Oh, do you, Erik?"

She pressed herself closer to him, and he felt her body like the heat of
a flame avidly caress him.

"I don't want you any different, though," she whispered. "When I see
other men I get horrified to think that you might become like them--if
you didn't love me. Dead, creepy things. Oh, men are horrible. Talk to
me, Erik."

"I can't. I love you. What else is there to say?" His voice trembled and
her mouth pressed upon his.

"I don't deserve such happiness," she said. Tears from her eyes fell
like warm wax on his shoulder. Her hands were fumbling distractedly over
him.

"Erik," she gasped, "my Erik! I worship you."

The storm pounded through the night, leaping and bellowing in a halloo
of sounds. Dorn tightened his arms mechanically about her warm flesh.
His lips were murmuring tensely, dramatically, "I love you. I love you."
And a sadness made a little warmth in his heart. He was alone in the
night. His arms and words were engaged in an old make-believe. But this
time he felt himself further away. There was no meaning....

He tried vainly to think of Anna, but an emptiness crowded even her name
out of his mind. His hands were returning her caresses, mimicking the
eager distraction of her own. His mind, removed as if belonging
elsewhere, was thinking aimless little words.

There was a storm outside. Lightning.... The war was taking up too much
space in the paper. Crowding out important local news. The Germans would
probably get to Paris soon and put an end to it.... Why did Rachel run
away? Should he ask her? Sometime. When he saw her. Ask her. Ask her....
His thought drifted into a blank. Then it said ... "The thing is
meaningless. Meaningless. Houses, faces, streets. Nothing, nothing.
There's nothing...."

His wife lay silent, quivering with an ecstasy. Her arms were hungrily
choking him. Dorn closed his eyes as if to hide himself. His lips still
murmured in a monotone, vague as the voice of a stranger in his
ears--responses in an old ritual--"I love you, I love you! Oh, I love
you so much!..."

PART II

DREAM

CHAPTER I

In the evening when women stand washing dishes in the kitchens of the
city, men light their tobacco and open newspapers. Later, the women
gather up the crumpled sheets and read.

The streets of the city spell easy w