1. Rain Falls in the Rue des Fenêtres
A SUDDEN spattering splash of rain came sifting through the almost naked branches of the old horse-chestnut trees as Mordecai Westhorne turned from the boulevard into the Rue des Fenêtres. He bent his head against the coming storm and hurried toward his lodgings, eager for their warmth and quiet, for a chance to rest, eager for the sight of things which would remind him of America and sanity.
He needed reassurance that the world had not gone utterly insane, that there were places where men lived and went about their business with the fear of God before their eyes but with no fear of men gnawing their brains like canker-worms in festering fruit. For this was Paris in October—Vendémiaire, according to the Revolutionary calendar—and the guillotine—the
