He had now reached the fourth turn beyond the withdrawn vision of the
capitol, and he advanced through a black snowing of soot. Flames,
fanlike and pallid, now flickered about his feet, streamed in the
gutters and lapped the curbs. He saw heaps of broken bottles against
the bricks, and the smell of fine spilled wines and liquors hung in his
nostrils. His reason again wavered--the tremendous spectacle of burning
assumed an apocalyptic appearance, as if the city had burst
spontaneously into flame from the passionate and evil spirits
engendered and liberated by war.
He stopped at the first crossing and saw before him a row of tall brick
houses, built solidly and set behind small yards and a low iron
fencing. They had shallow porticoes with iron grilling, and at this end
a towering magnolia tree swept its new glossy greenery against the
third-story windows.
"Linden Row," he muttered. "Well--Number Two?"
He swung back a creaking gate and went up a flight of bricked steps to
the door. He had guessed right; above a brass knocker filmed with the
floating muck of the air he saw the numeral, Two, painted beneath the
fanlight. The windows on the left were blank, curtained. The house rose
silent and without a mark of life above the obscene clamor of the city.
He knocked sharply and waited; then he knocked again. Nothing broke the
stillness of the facade, the interior. He tried the door, but it was
solidly barred. Then a second fact, a memory, joined the bare location
in his brain.
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