. It was in short a magnificent chance. This chance presented itself to me in an image richly material. I was a screen⁠—I was to stand before them. The more I saw, the less they would. I began to watch them in a stifled suspense, a disguised excitement that might well, had it continued too long, have turned to something like madness. What saved me, as I now see, was that it turned to something else altogether. It didn’t last as suspense⁠—it was superseded by horrible proofs. Proofs, I say, yes⁠—from the moment I really took hold.