"Did we all leave you so much alone, Ernst?"
"No," he said, quietly, "I am never alone. They are all of them around me, always. There are some of every century. Sometimes they are magnificently dressed and sing with exquisite voices. But latterly," mournfully shaking his head, "latterly they have not been like that. They are all grey, like ghosts; they no longer sing their beautiful tunes; they weep and wail and gnash their teeth. They used to come out into the middle of the room ... and laugh and sing and glitter. But now, oh, Constance, I don't know what they suffer, but they suffer something terrible ... a purgatory! They crowd round me, they suffocate me, till I can't draw my breath.... Hush, there they are, waking again!..."
"Yes," he whispered, "you are kind, you love them, you are sorry for them ... you let them sleep ... you don't wake them...."
And they sat quietly together for a moment, without speaking, she with her arm round his shoulder.
"What a lot of pretty things you have, Ernst!" she said, looking round the room.
"Yes," he said, "I collected them ... gradually, very gradually. There was one in every piece."
"Ernst," she said, gently, "perhaps it would be a good thing if you went to the country this summer."
At once he seemed to stiffen and shrink under her touch, as though all his limbs were becoming tense and stark:
"Ernst, it would be so good for you. Do you know Nunspeet?"
She felt him go rigid; and he looked at her angrily and harshly:
"The doctor wants to get me to Nunspeet," he answered, craftily. He laughed scornfully: "I know all about it. You people think I'm mad. But I'm not mad," he went on, haughtily. "You people are stupid: stupid and mad is what you are. You see nothing and hear nothing, you with your dull brute senses; and then you just think, because some one else sees and hears and feels, that he's mad ... whereas it's you yourselves who are mad. I shall stay here; I won't go to Nunspeet."
"I say, Constance, you won't force me, surely? You won't beat me? That beastly cad down below, that fellow, that cad: he hit me ... and woke them ... and trod on them! He stood treading on them, the great fool, the blockhead!... Tell me, Constance, you will leave me here, won't you?"