“Men, Gerda? Did I say men ?” And then suddenly, like a retreating image in a deep mirror, he remembered what his dream had been. He was himself a brittle stick, a piece of dead brushwood. At one end of him was the Waterloo tramp. At the other end of him was that complacent old man with the white cat. He had awakened in terror because he felt himself beginning to crack, as those two antagonists tugged.

After caressing Gerda with an emotional relaxation, such as the self-pitying weakness of a fever might have left, he settled himself again to sleep. His final thoughts were concerned with the meaning of his dream; but beyond a fumbling association of the Waterloo waif with the loss of his “mythology,” and the sleek cat-man with an acceptance of life on its lowest terms, the riddle remained unsolved.