MARCUS KARENIN
geons many questions upon the detailed possibilities of their science, and he was keenly interested and excited by the things they told him.
And as they talked the sun touched the mountains, and became very swiftly a blazing and indented hemisphere of liquid flame and sank.
Karenin looked blinking at the last quivering rim of incandescence, and shaded his eyes and became silent.
Presently he gave a little start.
"What?" asked Rachel Borken.
"I had forgotten," he said.
"What had you forgotten?"
"I had forgotten about the operation to-morrow. I have been so interested as Man to-day that I have nearly forgotten Marcus Karenin. Marcus Karenin must go under your knife to-morrow, Fowler, and very probably Marcus Karenin will die." He raised his slightly shrivelled hand. "It does not matter, Fowler. It scarcely matters even to me. For indeed is it Karenin who has been sitting here and talking; is it not rather a common mind, Fowler, that has played about between us? You and I and all of us have added thought to thought, but the thread is neither you nor me. What is true we all have; when the individual has altogether brought himself to the test and winnowing of expression, then the indi-
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