Edward chuckled, “Come the revolution, we’ll eliminate the deans, blow up the administrative offices, hand over the running of the college to a janitor as they do at the Sorbonne. Ah!”—and Edward laughed a short unamused laugh—“what a machine it’s all become, Orlando.”

Orlando sighed. “In a way,” he granted, but unwilling to spoil the moment of pleasure, he would not argue, or defend. “Let us listen to some Mozart, Edward. Would you mind? Lately I have found it a good idea to end my day with Mozart. I feel the need of purification,” he said, “to remove the clutter”—he was already slipping a record out of its case. “Order,” he said, laying it on the machine, “harmony—”

“Yes.” Edward leaned forward, prepared to listen. One of the bonds between these two men was this one, the fact that they listened to music in the same way, not as a self-indulgence, but poised, even a little tense perhaps, in an attitude as far from daydreaming as possible.

Orlando had chosen the clarinet quintet, one of the records Edward had given him a Christmas some years ago. They had not listened to it together for some time, and now it seemed to Fosca that they were walking together through a formal garden. The world had dropped away, anxiety, torment, it all flowed away. Yet the range was still human, included all that was human, never became exalté—this was the miracle of Mozart, he thought, to feel all human griefs and joys and yet transcend them quite simply, quite unself-consciously. Edward caught his look and smiled.

And when it was all over, they said nothing for some minutes, as the music left them, and the silence bore it away like a long receding wave, still heard long after it had vanished.

“The saving grace,” Edward said. Then he got up and put the record away. “I suppose I must be going,” but he looked around the room, as if he hated to leave it, as if he dreaded the night waiting for him outside, waiting to pounce.

Orlando rose and faced him. This, this last hour, had contained whatever he had to give, but he knew that Edward would not sleep. If one could give sleep to another human being that would be the real saving grace. But Edward had always been cut off from this human sleep. His nights were brightly lit, nightmarishly alive. Now he would probably walk for hours, drop in at some late night bar, dreading to go back. All this Orlando knew. But tonight for some reason, it troubled him more than usual. “You could sleep here, Edward; I have a cot, you know,” he said tentatively.

“Thanks”—Edward rubbed his forehead—“but I’ll be all right.”

He turned toward the door.

“Edward——”

“Yes.”

“Don’t cast Damon into outer darkness. For your own sake. The price is too high.”