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of a hurry to stare at the blind man, cast an admiring glance at the dog. He pushed them gently to one side with his patient muzzle. As he was a fine, handsome dog they bore with him gladly. Suddenly the blind man pulled his cap on his head and, clutching it in the same hand as his white stick, held it out towards the crowd. 'To buy my dog bones!' he begged. Coins showered into it. In the middle of the street a crowd gathered round the two of them. The traffic was held up: luckily there was no policeman at this corner to direct it. Kien observed the beggar from close at hand. He was dressed with studied poverty and his face seemed educated. The muscles round his eyes twitched continually — he winked, raised his eyebrows and wrinkled his forehead—so that Kien mistrusted him and decided to regard him as a fraud. At that moment a boy of about twelve came up, hurriedly pushed the dog to one side and threw into the cap a large heavy button. The blind man stared in front of him and thanked him, perhaps in the slightest degree more warmly than before. The clink of the button as it fell into die cap had sounded like the ring of gold. Kien felt a pang in his heart. He caught the boy by the scruff of the neck and cuffed him over the head with his brief-case. 'For shame,' he said, 'deceiving a blind man!' Only after he had done it did he recollect what was in the brief-case: books. He was horrified. Never before had he taken so great a risk. The boy ran off howling. To restore his normal and far less exalted level of compassion, Kien emptied his entire stock of small change into the blind man's cap. The bystanders approved aloud; to himself the action seemed more petty and cautious than the preceding one. The dog set off again. Immediately after, just as a policeman appeared on the scene, both leader and led had resumed their brisk progress.
    Kien took a private vow that if he should ever be threatened by blindness, he would die of his own free will. Whenever he met a blind man this same cruel fear clutched at him. Mutes he loved: the deaf, the lame and other kinds of cripples meant nothing to him; the blind disturbed him. He could not understand why they did not make an end of themselves. Even if they could read braille, their opportunities for reading were limited. Eratosthenes, the great librarian of Alexandria, a scholar of universal significance who flourished in the third century of the pre-Christian era and held sway over more than half a million manuscript scrolls, made in his eightieth year a terrible discovery. His eyes began to refuse their office. He could still see but he could not read. Another man might have waited until he was completely blind. He felt that to take leave of his books was blindness enough. Friends and pupils implored him to stay with them. He smiled wisely, thanked them, and in a few days starved himself to death.
    Should the time come this great example could easily be followed even by the lesser Kien, whose library comprised a mere twenty-five thousand volumes.
    The remaining distance to his own house he completed at a quickened pace. It must be past eight o'clock. At eight o'clock his work began; unpunctuality caused him acute irritation. Now and again, surreptitiously he felt his eyes. They focused correctly; they felt comfortable and unthreatened.
    His library was situated on the fourth and topmost floor of No. 24 Ehrlich Strasse. The door of the flat was secured by three highly complicated locks. He unlocked them, strode across the hall, which contained nothing except an umbrella and coat-stand, and entered his study. Carefully he set down the brief-case on an armchair. Then once and again he paced the entire length of the four lofty, spacious communicating rooms which formed his library. The entire wall-space up to the ceiling was clothed with books. Slowly he lifted his eyes towards them. Skylights had been let into the ceiling. He was proud of his roof-lighting. The windows had been walled