"The" Student Vagabond

On across the health, in the rain and darkness and screaming wind, struggle the figures of two men. the wind whips and twitches at their cloaks, and the men, bending into it, move with the slowness of despair. Hear them talk as they labour through the darkness with the, subtle echo of madness in their voices, the younger one babbling pointlessly and the old one muttering courses to himself. He curses his daughter and his dismal fate, his weak age and his cracking brains and the fool beside him. Lightening picks pot their faces at odd intervals. Rain glisters the brightly vacuous expression of the younger man. It sprays the old man, gray with pain and hopelessness, and blinds his eyes that are so dark with trouble, smoldering with anguish. It washes the hair down over his eyes, and mats his beard, lending an eerie, crazy look.

As the night wears on the pace grows slower, the curses quieter. The old man stumbles with exhaustion. "No, no, no," he whispers over and over again to himself, "It cannot be, it cannot be." And the idiot beside him mutters, "Yes, nuncle; yes, nuncle."

On through the night they wander, Lear and his fool. Growing and crackling of thunder shakes the earth, and lightening glares.

This morning at ten will find the Vagabond in Harvard 5 to hear Professor Kittredge finish the second act of "Lear".