ening's experience, and by the woman, he
strode swiftly forward, hardly heeding anything, but rushing blindly on
through all the crowd, carried away by his own feelings, as much as if
he had been alone, and all these many people merely trees.

Leaving the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele a gang of soldiers suddenly rushed
round him, buffeting him in one direction, whilst another gang, swinging
round the corner, threw him back helpless again into the midst of the
first gang. For some moments he struggled among the rude, brutal little
mob of grey-green coarse uniforms that smelt so strong of soldiers.
Then, irritated, he found himself free again, shaking himself and
passing on towards the cathedral. Irritated, he now put on his overcoat
and buttoned it to the throat, closing himself in, as it were, from the
brutal insolence of the Sunday night mob of men. Before, he had been
walking through them in a rush of naked feeling, all exposed to their
tender mercies. He now gathered himself together.

As he was going home, suddenly, just as he was passing the Bargello,
he stopped. He stopped, and put his hand to his breast pocket. His
letter-case was gone. He had been robbed. It was as if lightning ran
through him at that moment, as if a fluid electricity rushed down his
limbs, through the sluice of his knees, and out at his feet, leaving
him standing there almost unconscious. For a moment unconscious and
superconscious he stood there. He had been robbed. They had put their
hand in his breast and robbed him. If they had stabbed him, it could
hardly have had a greater effect on him.

And he had known it. He had known it. When the soldiers jostled him so
evilly they robbed him. And he knew it. He had known it as if it were
fate. Even as if it were fated beforehand.

Feeling quite weak and faint, as if he had really been struck by some
evil electric fluid, he walked on. And as soon as he began to walk, he
began to reason. Perhaps his letter-case was in his other coat. Perhaps
he had not had it with him at all. Perhaps he was feeling all this, just
for nothing. Perhaps it was all folly.

He hurried forward. He wanted to make sure. He wanted relief. It was
as if the power of evil had suddenly seized him and thrown him, and he
wanted to say it was not so, that he had imagined it all, conjured it
up. He did not want to admit the power of evil--particularly at that
moment. For surely a very ugly evil spirit had struck him, in the midst
of