* * * 1 early sunday morning , what light there was in the room circulating only dimly , void , like the air , of any firm ideas , scherzo sat quietly reading : eyes strained to the imperfect silhouettes of stains , registering their shapes , their meanings as he would the printed text of a bent-spine novel whose themes were similarly varied and whose letters arranged themselves on every page to the design of a long dead author in a kind of spontaneous conception of words .