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Halvorsen, walking uncertainly toward the fountain, felt something break inside him, and a heaviness in his lungs. As he pitched forward among the weeds, he thought he heard the chord from the lyre and didn’t care that the three-headed dog was grinning its knowing, hateful grin down at him.

VI

When Halvorsen awoke, he supposed he was in Hell. There were the young lovers, arms about each other’s waists, solemnly looking down at him, and the mother was placidly smoothing his brow. He stirred and felt his left arm fall heavily.

“Ah,” said the mother, “you mustn’t.” He felt her pick up his limp arm and lay it across his chest. “Your poor finger!” she sighed. “Can you talk? What happened to it?”

He could talk, weakly. “Labuerre and I,” he said. “We were moving a big block of marble with the crane—somehow the finger got under it. I didn’t notice until it was too late to shift my grip without the marble slipping and smashing on the floor.”

The boy said in a solemn, adolescent croak: “You mean you saved the marble and lost your finger?”