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Tied in a high chair, which stood apart as if it were the
pedestal of an idol, a baby, with the smooth unlined face not of an
infant, but of a philosopher, was mutely surveying the scene.
More than anything else in the room, more even than the sodden
hopelessness of the man's expression, the hopelessness of neurasthenia,
this baby, tied with a strip of gingham in his high chair, arrested and
held Stephen's attention. Very pallid, with the pallor not of flesh but
of an ivory image, with hair as thin and white as the hair of an old
man, and eyes that were as opaque as blue marbles, the baby sat there,
with its look of stoical philosophy and superhuman experience. And this
look said as plainly as if the tiny mute lips had opened and spoken
aloud: "I am tired before I begin. I am old before I begin. I am ending
before I begin."
Darrow knocked at the door, and the woman opened it with the coffee-pot
still in her hand.
"So you've come back," she said in a voice that was without surprise and
without gratitude.


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