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228 THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL
home ! The children had had measles. ... It was cold
on deck, he had better go downstairs into the saloon.
There were the eyes again, staring at the sofa and the
arm-chair. But they looked happy, longing, yearning
for something which must surely happen.
He left his place and stepped forward to let the fresh
breeze cool his face. Smoke and the smell of food were
rising from the kitchen. There was the cook, taking a
rest, trying to grow cool. And the large cabin !
The table-cloth was as white as it had been last year,
the silver epergne sparkled as before, the flowers on the
sideboard were as new and fresh, the lamps were swing-
ing in their brass brackets ; everything was exactly as it
had been before, and yet everything was new, thanks to
the ever-rejuvenating power of nature, thanks to spring !
And the shore glided past, a long, triumphant march
past, now threatening and sinister, now happy and
smiling, but always new, endowed with eternal youth.
He was the helpless sport of gloomy dreams ; he was
pressed in between houses in narrow, dark streets ; he was
at the bottom of a well ; he was trying to creep through
a tunnel and was held fast ; bricks were being heaped on
his breast, when he was awakened by a loud knocking at
the window shutters. He jumped up, but the room was
pitch dark ; he opened the shutters and a sea of light and
green greeted his eyes. Oh, Nature ! Reality which
surpasses all dreams !
Behold, you dreamer, your brain could never invent
such a dream, and yet you would talk of cold reality !
The morning sun w^as shining on an August landscape.
He put a piece of bread in his pocket, slung his drinking-
cup across his shoulder, took a stick and a basket and
went out in search of sport—sport, not bloodshed.
His path lay between oak trees and hazels ; autumn
flowers grew here, flowers which had waited until after
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