Contemplation

I was making for that city in the south of which it was said in our village: "There you'll find queer folk! Just think, they never sleep!" "And why not?" "Because they never get tired." "And why not?" "Because they're fools." "Don't fools get tired?" "How could fools get tired!"---Children on a Country Road, Contemplation.

At the same time all the houses round about promptly took part in this silence, and so did the darkness above them, reaching as far as the stars. And the footsteps of invisible passers-by, whose course I had no wish to guess at, the wind that kept on driving against the other side of the street, the gramophone singing behind closed windows in some room - they made themselves heard in this silence, as if they had owned it for ever and ever.

Now he remembered this long since forgotten resolution, and quickly forgot it again, like someone pulling a short thread right through the eye of a needle.

Well, do you think I believe in ghosts? But how can my not believing help me?

Like the cogency of the air after a thunderstorm! My qualities before me and overwhelm me, though I may not put up much of a fight against them.