Moths went past, the moon was creeping
up. He sat very calm, puffing the smoke out in to the night air. Curious
thing-life! Curious world! Curious forces in it--making one do the
opposite of what one wished; always--always making one do the opposite,
it seemed! The furtive light from that creeping moon was getting hold of
things down there, stealing in among the boughs of the trees. 'There's
something ironical,' he thought, 'which walks about. Things don't come
off as you think they will. I meant, I tried but one doesn't change like
that all of a sudden, it seems. Fact is, life's too big a thing for one!
All the same, I'm not the man I was yesterday--not quite!' He closed his
eyes, and in one of those flashes of vision which come when the senses
are at rest, he saw himself as it were far down below--down on the floor
of a street narrow as a grave, high as a mountain, a deep dark slit of a
street walking down there, a black midget of a fellow, among other black
midgets--his wife, and the little soldier, the judge, and those jury
chaps--fantoches straight up on their tiny feet, wandering down there
in that dark, infinitely tall, and narrow street. 'Too much for one!'
he thought; 'Too high for one--no getting on top of it.
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