No, it was madness of another kind.
He refused to visualize his face upon the blue plate, and speaking out of the darkness with solemnity said:
"The Machine stops."
"What do you say?"
"The Machine is stopping, I know it, I know the signs."
She burst into a peal of laughter. He heard her and was angry, and they spoke no more.
"Can you imagine anything more absurd?" she cried to a friend. "A man who was my son believes that the Machine is stopping. It would be impious if it was not mad."
"The Machine is stopping?" her friend replied. "What does that mean? The phrase conveys nothing to me."
"Nor to me."
"He does not refer, I suppose, to the trouble there has been lately with the music?"