The way a lady entertaining an illicit desire touches her earlobe in a crowded room, and the way that room seems to single her out and undress her with murmuring torchlight? if the right spectator is present, even though the band is playing loudly and the myriad celebrants are toasting their near-tragic rise to glory, and the Vice President of an important bank is considering an assassination, and even the mice in the boiler room are planning a raid on an old bag of cookies in the attic? Even so, this spectator senses the moisture on her palms, can feel her thoughts wander in and out of the cavernous room; knows, too, their approximate destination. Beyond this, he refuses to follow. She stands alone there on the quay, waiting. The river of life is flowing. The spectator returns to his room, a few hours closer to his own death or ecstacy. He makes a few hasty entries into his diary before turning off the light. And, yes, he dreams, but of a gazelle frozen in the path of a runaway truck.