He had not seen the glance the woman sent after him as he entered the house, nor had he any idea why they had been so ready to rent him the top attic without making any stipulation about payment. True, it was squalid enough, but it had a bed, a table and a chair, so that at any rate he would have a roof over his head and a place of refuge at a moment when he had been afraid he would have to sleep in the street. The woman’s friendly smile had made him feel, as on the first occasion, that these people had seen how poor he was and wanted to do him a kindness.

He had taken this almost as a matter of course and thought no more about it. He had not the faintest idea that he was being used merely to dispel, by means of his harmless presence, the attic’s evil reputation. He did not know that a week previously, in this same bare room which he had just entered, a mysterious old man had died a mysterious death. For many years this old man had lived there alone, feared by his neighbours, regarded by everybody with silent dread, understood by none. He was very tall and pale, and so thin that in his long, loose robes, he looked more like a spirit than a creature of flesh and blood. So colorless was his face that it might have belonged to a corpse, and his every movement and step were so feeble that it seemed as though a breath would blow him away. But through the snow-white hair of his mustache and beard there gleamed the fine cupid’s bow of his red lips, eternally closed, like a symbol of imperishable youth; and the clear, commanding expression of his gray eyes was that of a man of great power and vitality.

The porter’s wife could remember him from the time when she was a child and used to play with other children on the bastion. Everybody, young and old alike, shrank from him. No one had ever been known to hear him speak. Silent and solitary, he walked amid his fellows, inaccessible and heedless of all about him. Often for weeks at a time he would disappear, and then as suddenly return. Everyone thought him a magician. One or two brave spirits, imagining he was versed in the occult sciences, and perhaps possessed the power of healing or exorcising serious afflictions, had, from time to time, sought his help; but to all their questions he had answered never a word, until at last, cowed by the power of his eyes, they had fled in terror from his presence. It was a long time ago that all this had happened and no one had been able to pluck up courage to address him since. Then suddenly, about a week previously, he had been found up in the attic a disfigured corpse. Thus the room came to be regarded as a place of horror, where in all probability it was neither safe nor wise to live. It was hoped that the young lodger would be a means of testing whether the old man’s spirit still haunted the place.

But of all this Lucas, as he entered the tiny room, knew nothing. Laying his portfolio on the table, he cast a rapid glance round without seeing anything and then gave himself up to his thoughts. They were the thoughts of a man for whom all the world’s treasures lie out of reach, a man without a calling, sitting with empty hands and staring desperately into vacancy with the one question ringing in his heart—What shall I do? What shall I do? If a definite answer is forthcoming, all anxiety vanishes instantly, the barren hours that before had stretched like a desert to the horizon, are barren no more, but full of duties, plans, hopes and even confidence, and the fingers, itching to set to work on the task that lies ready to hand, forget how idle they have been hitherto. But the thoughts of a despairing man reply with nothing but a medley of ideas, which he cannot disentangle; a hundred and one voices seem to answer, each stammering at first and then suddenly breaking off altogether, till all are silenced, and only the old question remains—

“What shall I do?”

For a long while Lucas sat thus in the attic, the tormenting query ringing in his ears. At last he shook himself, and thrusting his thoughts impatiently from him, took refuge in the last stronghold of those who can see no escape from their distress. He began to dream. One day a rich man would come to him and say: “Would you like to go to Italy to learn some noble craft? Good, my son, here are ten ducats. They will enable you to travel free from care. There is enough there to take you to Florence and even further. Take the money and think no more about it; it is nothing to me. Often I stake ten ducats on a card and lose as much five or ten times over in an evening without feeling it. How many times have I given a girl ten ducats for a smile? Look at the buckle on my shoe; it is worth thirty ducats, and yet I was not put out for a moment when one of them was stolen.”

Surely, mused Lucas, as he continued to weave daydreams, there must be many good men in the world.