He moved right in, under the carved roof of the old conduit, between the Late Gothic pillars, and laid his hand on the edge of the water-trough. The traffic of the high-street passed him by, and groups of tall straw-hatted schoolboys brushed past him, cold, remote, haughty, discreet, like young Romans in some Ionian marketplace.

A barrel-organ was being played where the pavement widened, under the out-jutting gables of a medieval hostelry; and Wolf couldn’t help noticing how the abstracted, impassive expression of the old man who played it contrasted with a couple of ragged little children, glowing-cheeked and intent, who danced to its jigging tune.

“Polytheism⁠ ⁠… dualism,” he repeated, trying to retain the philosophical distinctions which he felt crumbling to bits and drifting away. But as he fumbled with his fingers at that conduit-trough and turned automatically a leaden faucet so that water gushed out over his hand, his mind seemed to reject every single one of those traditional human catchwords.