It was all
light and fire and colour that night, with towers of gold and frosted
green, and even the black crowds that thronged the Nevski pavements shot
with colour.
Somewhere in one of Shorthouse's stories--in _The Little Schoolmaster
Mark_, I think--he gives a curious impression of a whirling fantastic
crowd of revellers who evoke by their movements some evil pattern in the
air around them, and the boy who is standing in their midst sees this
dark twisted sinister picture forming against the gorgeous walls and the
coloured figures until it blots out the whole scene and plunges him into
darkness. I will not pretend that on this evening I discerned anything
sinister or ominous in the gay scene that the Alexandra Theatre offered
me, but I was nevertheless weighed down by some quite unaccountable
depression that would not let me alone. For this I can see now that
Lawrence was very largely responsible. When I met him and the
Wilderlings in the foyer of the theatre I saw at once that he was
greatly changed.
The clear open expression of his eyes was gone; his mind was far away
from his company--and it was as though I could see into his brain and
watch the repetition of the old argument occurring again and again and
again with always the same questions and answers, the same reproaches,
the same defiances, the same obstinacies.
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