He looked about him. There was no one there. He shook his head as people do when they shake water from their ears. He inclined his good right ear and listened for the sound again. He tugged and rubbed his good right ear—yes, it was unmistakable—the good right ear was ringing with the sound.
Fox looked bewildered, puzzled, searched round the room again with sea-pale eyes, saw nothing, saw his hat beside him on the pillow, said, “Oh,” in a slightly puzzled tone, picked up the hat and jammed it on his head, half-covering the ears, swung out of bed and thrust his feet into his slippers, got up, pyjamaed and behatted, walked over to the door, opened it, looked out, and said:
“What? Is anybody there?—Oh!”
For there was nothing—just the hall, the quiet, narrow hall of morning, the closed door of his wife’s room, and the stairs.
He closed the door, turned back into his room, still looking puzzled, intently listening, his good right ear half-turned and searching for the sounds.
Where had they come from then? The name—he thought he heard it still, faintly now, mixed in with many other strange, confusing noises. But where? From, what direction did they come? Or had he heard them? A long, droning sound, like an electric fan—perhaps a motor in the street? A low, retreating thunder—an elevated train, perhaps? A fly buzzing? Or a mosquito with its whining bore? No, it could not be: it was morning, spring-time, and the month of May.
Light winds of morning fanned the curtains of his pleasant room. An old four-poster bed, a homely, gay old patch-quilt coverlet, an old chest of drawers, a little table by his bed, piled high with manuscripts, a glass of water and his eyeglasses, and a little ticking clock. Was that what he had heard? He held it to his ear and listened. On the mantel, facing him, the bust of his grandfather, Senator William Foxhall Morton, far-seeing, sightless, stern, lean, shrewd with decision; a chair or two, and on the wall an engraving of Michelangelo’s great Lorenzo Medici. Fox looked at it and smiled.
“A man,” said he in a low voice. “The way a man should look!” The figure of the young Caesar was mighty-limbed, enthroned; helmeted for war; the fine hand half-supporting the chin of the grand head, broodingly aware of great events and destiny; thought knit to action, poetry to fact, caution to boldness, reflection to decision—the Thinker, Warrior, Statesman, Ruler all conjoined in one. “And what a man should be,” thought Fox.
A little puzzled still, Fox goes to his window and looks out, pyjamaed and behatted still, the fingers of one hand back upon his hips, a movement lithe and natural as a boy’s. The head goes back, swift nostrils sniff, dilate with scorn. Light winds of morning fan him, gauzy curtains are blown back.
And outside, morning, and below him, morning, sky-shining morning all above, below, around, across from him, cool-slanting morning, gold-cool morning, and the street. Black fronts of rusty brown across from him, the flat fronts of Turtle Bay.
Fox looks at morning and the street with sea-pale eyes, as if he never yet had seen them, then in a low and husky voice, a little hoarse, agreeable, half-touched with whisper, he says with slow recognition, quiet wonder, and—somehow, somewby—resignation:
“Oh…I see.”
Turns now and goes into his bathroom opposite, surveys himself in the mirror with the same puzzled, grave, and sea-pale wonder, looks at his features, notes the round cages that enclose his eyes, sees Boy-Fox staring gravely out at him, bethinks him suddenly of Boy-Fox’s ear, which stuck out at right angles forty years ago, getting Boy-Fox gibes at Groton—so jams hat farther down about the ear, so stick-out ear that’s stick-out ear no longer won’t stick out!
So standing, he surveys himself for several moments, and finding out at length that this indeed is he, says, as before, with the same slightly puzzled, slow, and patiently resigned acceptance:
“Oh. I see.”
Turns on the shower faucet now—the water spurts and hisses in jets of smoking steam. Fox starts to step beneath the shower, suddenly observes pyjamas on his person, mutters slowly—“Oh-h!”—and takes them off. Unpyjamaed now, and as God made him, save for hat, starts to get in under shower with hat on—and remembers hat, remembers it in high confusion, is forced against his will to acknowledge the unwisdom of the procedure—so snaps his fingers angrily, and, in a low, disgusted tone of acquiescence, says:
“Oh, well, then! All right!”
So removes his hat, which is now jammed on so tightly that he has to take both hands and fairly wrench and tug his way out of it, hangs the battered hulk reluctantly within easy reaching distance on a hook upon the door, surveys it for a moment with an undecided air, as if still not willing to relinquish it—and then, still with a puzzled air, steps in beneath those hissing jets of water hot enough to boil an egg!