Dodson yielded a mournful obedience. In spite of the firm conviction that his poor friend was now hopelessly overthrown, such an imperious power seemed to reside in a face that was formerly the mansion of an exquisite gentleness, that he could not summon the resolution to resist. But even as the unhappy young man took the first page in his hand and his eyes met the ordered rows of firm but delicate writing with which it was covered, he knew how correct was his prophecy. Hardly a phrase, hardly a word that there was written addressed his reason in any aspect of coherence or good sense.
There was a long pause, a crucifying silence, in which the poet, his aged father, and the unhappy reader confronted one another in passive bewilderment.
The poet seemed to devour the face of his friend with his sightless eyes.
“W-what shall I tell him?” said Dodson to the old man in the extremity of anguish.
“Speak only the truth,” said the old man. “Let nought be concealed. Nature who has vouchsafed to him all things, will preserve the first of her sons from the stroke of joy.”
“Oh, I can’t speak the truth,” said Dodson. “It would be worse than hitting him in the face.”
“Can it wound Achilles to receive the affirmation of his quality?” said the old man, whose voice was like a knell.
Dodson’s veins felt a sharper chill.
“They are both mad,” he muttered, “hopelessly mad!”
The old man took Dodson’s arm in a grip of which none could have suspected him to be capable; and his pale and wasted features had now become as imperious as those of the sightless poet.