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“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Quite.”

“Write down, 20, 1, 11, 5, 14, 15.”

“What?”

“Write it down, I tell you.”

He was now sitting up, with his eyes turned to the open window and his fingers rolling a Turkish cigarette. He continued:

“Write down, 21, 14, 14, 5….”

He stopped. Then he went on:

“3, 5, 19, 19 …”

And, after a pause:

“5, 18, 25 …”

Was he mad? I looked at him hard and, presently, I saw that his eyes were no longer listless, as they had been a little before, but keen and attentive and that they seemed to be watching, somewhere, in space, a sight that apparently captivated them.

Meanwhile, he dictated, with intervals between each number:

“18, 9, 19, 11, 19 …”

There was hardly anything to be seen through the window but a patch of blue sky on the right and the front of the building opposite, an old private house, whose shutters were closed as usual. There was nothing particular about all this, no detail that struck me as new among those which I had had before my eyes for years….

“1, 2….”