“Don’t! Don’t!” I cried. But it was like protecting yourself with your hands and crying to a bullet: you may still be hearing your own “don’t” but the bullet meanwhile has burned you through, and writhing with pain, you are prostrated on the ground.

Yes, yes; the Builder of the Integral .⁠ ⁠… Yes, yes.⁠ ⁠… At once there came back to me the angry face of U- with twitching, brick-red gills, on that morning when both of them.⁠ ⁠…

I remember now, clearly, how I raised my eyes and laughed. A Socrates-like, bald-headed man was sitting before me; and small drops of sweat dotted the bald surface of his cranium.

How simple, how magnificently trivial everything was! How simple! Almost to the point of being ridiculous. Laughter was choking me and bursting forth in puffs; I covered my mouth with my hand and rushed wildly out.⁠ ⁠…