“Marburg. The Hendersons live next door to us. Dr. Galbraith, I wonder if Mr. Greeley would let us have another day . . . you know, about my brother. My mother doesn’t want him to be buried like a pauper, and I thought if you spoke to him, he might give us some more time so that we can try to find some money.”

We were walking so close together that our arms kept brushing and each time I moved away from him, his hand groped out towards me for support.

“Just a minute. I can’t seem to think in a fog.”

We could see no more than ten feet in any direction, and I felt as if I were suspended in a gaseous sphere, for the blindness of the air made my locomotion seem rotary and almost effortless, and when the doctor softly collided with me, it seemed even more that we were going round and round in a circle, he overstepping the bounds of the outer ring while I, with difficulty, maintained my footing in the inner one.

I repeated my question to him. “Well, I don’t know . . .” he said.

Beyond us, we could now and again hear voices and the distant foghorns which only isolated us the more since there could be no proof, until someone entered our shortened range of vision, that the experience was not unique for us, just as it is said that perhaps a tree, falling in a forest, makes no sound if no one hears it.

The doctor stopped me and sighed deeply. “Look here, Miss Martin, I don’t believe . . . I’m not certain, but the fact is that when a cor . . . someone is buried in this way it is not . . . well, frankly, it is not embalmed. I . . . no, I regret very much that it really is an impossibility.” He clasped my arm tightly with his trembling fingers.

“But we will know by noon tomorrow and it could be embalmed then, couldn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you, my dear. These things are . . . my poor girl, there is no shame in being a pauper! But if you should know by noon tomorrow, I daresay something could be arranged. I’ll speak to Mr. Greeley.”

I thanked him and prepared to take leave. “How is your mother?” he asked me.

“Very well, thank you, though she’s terribly upset to think we may not have a funeral.”

“Ah, yes, yes, it’s too bad. She is an, ah, an admirable woman. What is her name again?”

“Mrs. Marburg.”

“Oh, yes. She is very handsome. She isn’t an American?”

“No, she’s a Russian.”

“Fascinating!” he cried. “She looks like a painting I used to be fond of. A madonna, you know, something of that sort, very likely by a Russian painter. Will you give her my regards?”

“Yes, Dr. Galbraith, and thank you for all you’ve done.”