yes were
closed.

"Asleep," mused Moisse.

He moved closer to him.

The man's head was covered with long silky white hair that hung down to
his neck and hid his ears. It was uncombed. His face in the sun looked
like the face of an ascetic, thin, finely veined.

He had a long nose and almost colorless lips and the skin on his cheeks
was white. It was drawn tight over his bones, leaving few wrinkles.

An expression of peace rested over him--peace and detachment. Of the
noise and babble he heard nothing. His eyes were closed to the crowded
frantic street.

He sat, his head back, his face bathed in the sun, smileless and
dreaming.

"A beggar," thought Moisse, "asleep, oblivious. Dead. All day he sits
in the sun like a saint, immobile. Like one of the old Alexandrian
ascetics, like a delicately carved image. He is awake in himself but
dead to others. The waves cannot touch him. His thoughts, oh to know
his thoughts and his dreams?"

Suddenly the eyes of the young dramatist widened. He was looking at the
beggar's long hair that hung to his neck.

"It's moving," he whispered half aloud. He came closer and stood over
the old man and gazed intently at the top of his head.

The hair was swaying faintly, each separate fiber moving alone....

It shifted, rose imperceptibly and fell. It quivered and glided....

"Lice," murmured Moisse.

He watched.

Silent and asleep the old man sat with his thin face to the sun and his
hair moved.

Vermin swarmed through it, creeping, crawling, tiny and infinitesimal.

Every strand was palpitating, shuddering under their mysterious energy.

At first Moisse could hardly make them out, but his eyes gradually grew
accustomed to the sight. And as he watched he saw the hair swell like
waves riding over the water, saw it drop and flutter, coil and uncoil of
its own accord.

Vermin raised it up, pulled it out, streaming up and down tirelessly in
vast armies.

They crawled furiously like dust specks blown thick through the white
beard.

They streamed and shifted and were never still.

They moved in and out, from no place to no place, but always moving,
frantic and frenzied.

An old woman passed and with a shake of her head dropped two pennies
into the upturned hat. Moisse hardly saw her. He saw only the
palpitating swarms that were now facing, easily visible, through the
gray white hair.

Some ventured down over the white ascetic face, crawling in every
direction, traveling