He was silent, looking ahead of him.
"I—I see blue," he finally said, as though to himself. His face was clammy with sweat.
"What sort of blue?" I prompted. "Blue cloth? Blue sky? Blue ink? Blue what?"
"It's blue," he repeated, ignoring my interruption. And all his soul seemed writhing and twisting in some terrible travail of mental childbirth.
"I see blue. And you're making it white. You're covering it up. You're turning over white—white—white! Oh, what in God's name is it?"
My spine was again tingling with a thousand electric needles as I watched him. He turned to me with a gesture of piteous appeal.
"What was it?" he implored. "Can't you help me get it—get it before it goes! What was it?"
"It was blue, blue and white," I told him, and as I said it I realized what madhouse jargon it would have sounded to any outsider.
He sank into a chair, and let his head fall forward on his hands. He did not speak for several seconds.
"And there are two hills covered with snow," he slowly intoned.