I
With the brim of his wide-awake turned down, the collar of his overcoat up to his ears, Jerome Mocs stepped into the street. It was late afternoon, and the air smelt of coming rain; the sky was spread with cloud as evenly as with mortar from a trowel. The young man shot a single glance of distaste round him; then, hunching his shoulders, made for a narrow street that led to the centre of the town. He walked listlessly, dragging his feet. Yet rather than chance brushing up against a passer-by, he went to the trouble of stepping off the pavement into the road.
In his present mood the very sight of his fellow-men was odious to him. For he was that most distracted of mortals, the creative artist whose inspiration has failed him. The rich flow of musical ideas, the power to bend these rhyth
