Céleste passed him with a quip.
What she said he didn't know, but he thought how opaque and material she was in such a spiritual world; and what a pity it was; and how sorry he was for her.
Madame stopped him and gave him orders. He heard and carried them out.
But all the while this new spirit was at work on its own business in the deeps of him. His intellect, a mere cockle-shell afloat on an Ocean of Mind, dealt with the superficial mechanism of life.
He was elsewhere. For the first time Ernie became aware of a Double Life going on within him, of Two Minds, related, yet apart, each pursuing its own ends.
He entered the room in the basement where the men cleaned the knives, blacked the boots and ate their hurried meals. It was cool, almost cavernous. He was amazed that he had never before seen beauty in this bleak room, the beauty of the woods for which he longed.
He sat down and was glad.
About him were men of all nationalities, some in aprons, some in their shirt-sleeves, some snatching a desultory snack, chattering or silent.
Ernie, aware of them, yet deep in himself, was conscious of two impressions: These men were monkeys—and knew it; and they were Sons of God—and as yet unconscious of it.
One of the men, a sallow Austrian with a stringy moustache, who went by the name of Don John among his mates, put down the Arbeiter Zeitung which he had been reading, watched Ernie awhile sardonically, and then made a jeering remark to a neighbour, who replied.