e taught, my friend."

"Then Heaven help me! for I should like to laugh at you. If I could but
laugh at you, all would be over."

"Ah!" said the hunchback. "I see."

* * *

At the end of the week Minetti came to Suvaroff one evening and said,
not unkindly: "Why don't you leave? You are killing yourself. Go
away--miles away. It would have happened, anyway."

Suvaroff was lying upon his bed. His face was turned toward the wall. He
did not trouble to look at Minetti.

"I cannot leave. You know that as well as I do. When I am absent from
this room I am in a fever until I get back to it again. I lie here and
close my eyes and think.... Whenever a thud shakes the house I leap up,
trembling. I have not worked for five days. They have given up sending
for me from the cafe. Yesterday his mother came and sat with me. She
drove me mad. But I sat and listened to her. 'Yes, he was a good son!'
She repeats this by the hour, and rolls and unrolls her handkerchief....
It is bad enough in the daytime. But at night--God! If only the music
would play again! I cannot endure such silence."

He buried his face in the pillow. Minetti shrugged and left.

In about an hour Suvaroff rose and went out. He found a squalid
wine-shop in the quarter just below the Barbary Coast. He went in and
sat alone at a table. The floors had not been freshly sanded for weeks;
a dank mildew covered the green wall-paper. He called for brandy, and a
fat, greasy-haired man placed a bottle of villainous stuff before him.
Suvaroff poured out a drink and swallowed it greedily. He drank another
and another. The room began to fill. The lights were dim, and the
arrival and departure of patrons threw an endless procession of
grotesque silhouettes upon the walls. Suvaroff was fascinated by these
dancing shadows. They seemed familiar and friendly. He sat sipping his
brandy, now, with a quieter, more leisurely air. The shadows were
indescribably fascinating; they were so horrible and amusing! He began
to wonder whether their antics would move him to laughter if he sat and
drank long enough. He had a feeling that laughter and sleep went hand in
hand. If he could but laugh again he was quite sure that he would fall
asleep. But he discovered a truth while he sat there. Amusement and
laughter were often strangers. He had known this all his life, of
course, but he had never thought of it. Once, when he was a child, an
old man had fallen in the road before him, in a fit. Su