rated it, smelt it, put a speck of it on his tongue. He recognized its strong, astringent bitterness and tasted it with delight. “That’s good,” he said with relief and pressed the precious object between his palms, as if he were warming on it his numbed hands.
“It is you,” he said under his breath, “I know you; you are an explosive element. Your moment will come and you will liberate everything. That’s good.” He looked about uneasily from under his eyebrows. “What do you want to know? I only understand two things: The stars and chemistry. It’s beautiful . . . the endless stretches of time, the eternal order and steadfastness, the divine architecture of the universe. I tell you . . . there’s nothing more beautiful. But what do I care about the laws of eternity? Your moment will come and you will explode. You will liberate love, pain, thought, I don’t know what. Your greatest triumph will last only for a second. You are not part of the endless order or of the millions of light years. Explode with the most lofty flame. Do you feel yourself shut in? Then burst to pieces the mortar. Make a place for your sole moment. That’s good.”
He himself did not clearly understand what he was saying, but he was carried on by an obscure impulse to express something which immediately evaded him again. “I . . . I’m only a chemist. I know matter and . . . understand it; that’s all. Matter is broken up by air and water, splits, ferments, rots, burns, absorbs acid or disintegrates; but never, you hear, never with all that gives up what it contains. Even if it goes through the whole cycle, even if some fragment of earth becomes in-
