Erik Dorn

uildings spread a zigzag of windows, a scribble of rooftops against the sky. A din as monotonous as a silence tumbled through the street

flinging its chimneys and its streets against the sun, wound itself

er scraps scattered about him. Bodies poured suddenly across his eyes as if emptied out of funnels. The ornamental entrance

s he felt himself most securely at home. The smear of gestures, the elastic distortion of crowds windi

ok upon the world, to observe it as one observes a pattern-involved but precise. Life as a whole lay in the streets-a little human procession that came toiling out of a

e remained untouched. He walked smiling into crowds, oblivious of the lesser destinations of fac

him more than the metronomic. In art, the latter was predominant. In life, the former. Out of these decisions he achieved almost a complete indifference to literature and especially toward painting. No drawn picture stirred him to the extent that did the ta

of Erik Dorn was a shallows. Life did not live in him. He saw it as something eternally

finally absorbed by the ingenious surfaces they've surrounded themselves with, and lif

ited half consciously for something to happen to him. He thought of this something as a species of contact that would suddenly overtake him. He would step into the street and find himself a citizen absorbed by responsibilities, ideas, sympathies, prejud

and at times compelling, had always seemed to him as words-pretences to which he loaned himself for diversion. He was aware that neither ideas nor prejudices-the residues of emotion-exi

ummer morning. He was a part of it. Yet between him

hey were his experiences and sophistications. Out of them he achieved his keenest diversion. They were the excuse for his walking, his wearing a hat and embarking dai

moment. Carried away in the heat of some intricate debate he would pause internally, as his voice continued without interruption, and exclaim to himself, "What in hell am I talking about?" And a momentary awe would overcome him-the awe of listening to himself give uttera

ariably roused in him a sense of the ludicrous. His eyes seemed to travel through the griefs and torments of his fellows and to fasten helplessly upon their causes. And here lay the ludicrous-the clownish little mainspring of tragedy and drama. He moved through his day with a vivid understandi

ure. Erik had eaten the ideas out of it. Under the continual impact of his irony her faiths and understandings had slowly deserted her. Her thought had become a shadow cast by his emptiness. Things were no longer good, no longer bad. People had become somehow non-existent for her since she could no longer think of

that the day was the anniversary of their marriage. Time had passed rapidly. Seven years! Like seven yesterdays. He seemed able to remembe