“Tell me of this lecture.”
“Philosophy.”
“Tsa. It is indeed a pity.”
“It is a series” ... are you sitting there already involved in engagements ... cut off; changed ...
“Excellent. I shall most certainly come.” He was looking freely ahead. His evening had not interested him .... he had gone and come back, his horizons unenlarged .... but not seeing the impression he had made on those people; the steps they would take.
“It would be splendid for you. The lecturer’s English wonderful. The way the close thought made his sentences, fascinated me so much, that I often missed the meaning in listening to the rhythm; like a fugue.” Aren’t you glad you’ve enlarged your horizons? Don’t you know what people are ... what you, a person, are to people? Are you a person? In a blankness, life streamed up in spirals, vanishing, leaving nothing ....
“That is not bad. Ah I should not have paid this visit. It was also in some respects most painful to me.” Poor little man, poor little lonely man white-faced and sensitive, in a world without individuals; grown and formed and wise without realising an individual; never to realise. Audible within the darkness was a singing, hovering on spaces of warm rosy light.
“You must not regret your visit.”
“Regret no; it was much as I anticipated. But it is disheartening, this actual witnessing.” They were disposed of in some way; in one piece; he would have a formula.
“What are they like?”