“What people call ‘futility,’ ” so his thoughts ran on, “is just the failure of great emotions. But it’s a good thing for them to fail. Let them fail! Only when they fail does the under-tide of life itself rise to the surface. Futility is the transparency of the lake⁠ ⁠… what makes the shadows fall and float⁠ ⁠… beautiful⁠ ⁠… like leaves!”

Before he knew that sleep was anywhere near him, he sank, just as he was, like a drifting log in his own leaf-strewn lake, into the region where the living are as the dead. But the suppressed intention at the back of his brain awoke him into full consciousness again, just before dawn.

There was by this time an indescribable chilliness in the room, different from the chilliness of the rain and the wind as they had been when he had gone to sleep. Lying with hunched shoulders and hooked knees close to Gerda’s side, his arm flung across the girl’s body, he felt through every nerve this new feeling in the air.