id with
another man's money,--standing alone, tormented with the thought of how
little money really can pay for, I wanted to rush after them and thank
them for going away.

In the evening, when the last workman was gone, I used to venture into
the piling structure. The chaos of it would often bring a fever around
the eyes, like that which a man wakes with, after a short and violent
night. Then on those evenings when something seemed accomplished that
gave a line to the blessed silence of the finished thing, and I found
myself turning in pleasure to it--the thought would come that it wasn't
really mine; that after all the detail remained of paying for it. I used
to go from the building and grounds then--cutting myself clear from it,
as a man would snip with scissors the threads of some net that entangled
him. I don't breathe freely even now in the meshes of possession.

I used to wonder at the confidence and delight which the other members
of the household took in the completing house. They regarded it as the
future home.... One by one the different sets of workmen came and went.
I am in awe of men who plaster houses for a living--and for pennies the
hour. Always they arrive at the very summit of disorganisation--one
house after another through life--to accept money and call their work
paid for.... There is something to play with in masonry--every stone is
different--but to learn order by lathing and plastering! Dante missed it
from his inventions. I do not count the plasterers paid--nor the house
paid for....

One evening I went through the structure when all but the final
finishing was over. I saw it all and was in a daze. The town regarded it
as having to do with me; the establishment was connected with my name;
yet I stood in a daze, regarding the pool and the balcony and the
fireplaces--finding them good.... The lumberman had outlined a plan by
which the years would automatically restore me to my own, but I am
unable still to see how these things are done. I would go to any length
to help him in ways familiar to me, but I could never stake him to a
stone house. And that was not all. I didn't look for the bit of Lake
shore bluff. I merely chose it to smoke on, because it was still--and
presently they called it mine. I didn't look for the architect, yet what
he did, his voice and letters full of unvarying pleasure, I could never
hope to do for him.... Yet here was the stone house--a week or two more
from this night