When our greetings were over I asked, without any preliminary remark or explanation:
“Did you ever notice anything peculiar about that studio in Rome?”
“If you hadn’t asked me that question,” he replied, “I should have put a similar one to you. I remember it as the most dismal and oppressive place I ever was in. I had a constant presentiment that something terrible was going to happen there. The air in the studio was often cold and warm in streaks. I couldn’t read, write, or paint without feeling that some one was looking over my shoulder. Every night I waked up towards morning and lay awake for some time, and often thought of speaking to find out whether you were awake too; for it seemed as if you must be, from your breathing. I couldn’t bear to stay alone there either in the daytime or at night, and even now I would rather live in the catacombs than set my easel up in that studio again. Now, what made you ask me about it?”
“Because I have never felt quite certain that I was in my right mind during the season we spent in Rome, and the memory of that studio has always haunted me like a horrid dream,” I replied. “Did you never have any hallucinations or nightmares there?”
“No,” he said, “unless you call the whole thing a nightmare.”
“Why didn’t you say something to me about it at the time?” I asked.
“Why didn’t you say something, if you felt as you say you did?” was his reply.