His senses of smell and hearing became inordinately sharpened, and it showed in the agitations ot his tense, silent features that, through the mediation of those senses, he remained in continual contact with an invisible world of dark nooks, mouse-holes, musty empty spaces beneath the floor, and chimney ducts. He was a vigilant and attentive observer, a prying fellow-conspirator, of the rustlings, the nightly creakings, the secret gnawing life of the floor. He was so engrossed in it that he became completely submerged in an inaccessible sphere and one which he did not even attempt to discuss with us. He often used to flip his fingers and laugh softly to himself when the manifestations of the unseen became too absurd; he then exchanged knowing looks with our cat which, also initiated in these mysteries, would lift its cynical cold striped face, closing the slanting chinks of its eyes with an air of indifference and boredom.
il. to The Cinnamon Shops by B. Schulz