In the next room, the kitchen, as it happens, he weaves over to the fireplace, where the soup kettle is still on the boil, and, bending primly from the waist, pokes his face into the fire to light his cigar. When he pulls back, his face is smudged and his moustache and eyebrows are smoking, but the cigar remains unlit. He scowls muzzily at the soggy butt, wrings it out, shrugs, mashes it out on the nearest clean white surface to hand — which turns out to be the bald pate of the fat man at the kitchen table: he slumps there as before, staring darkly at his bowl of soup, seemingly seething with fury, the wet cigar smeared like a tatty toupee across his barren dome. Charlie twitches in several directions at once, as though trying to run but not knowing which way to go. In desperation, he snatches up the straw broom and sweeps the cigar off the man's head. It falls in the soup. Charlie stares in horror at the thick lump of mangled cigar floating in the man's soup. He hurls the broom over his left shoulder into the dish cupboards, grabs up the soup bowl, lurches drunkenly to the fireplace, throws the contents into the fire, ladles out another bowlful from the kettle, pouring hot soup down his pant leg in haste, hops back anxiously on one foot, trips and falls, spilling the soup, scrambles to his feet and rushes back to the kettle, refills the bowl, returns cautiously, bowl shaking in his hands, spills it in the fat man's lap, dashes back to the kettle, beginning to delight now in all this to-ing and fro-ing, returns to spill soup all over the table, hippety-hops back giddily for another bowlful, hardly pausing at the kettle, dances to the table and pours the soup on the man's head. He whips the napkin out from under the man's chin and towels the dripping pate, blowing on it and polishing it with his sleeve, then returns for more soup and, with a graceful flourish, the napkin folded crisply over his arm, plants the steaming bowl in front of the man, pirouettes with outflung arms, whacking the fat man in the back of the head, crosses his ankles, and bows. The man, meanwhile, has not stirred, has not even ceased his dark sullen stare. His bulbous nose seems to fill up his face with a kind of thickening gloom, under which his moustaches hang lifelessly as though from a gibbet. Uneasily, Charlie tucks the napkin back under the fat chin, pats it down. He slides the soup bowl nearer. The man stares past it. Charlie pushes the bowl back into the line of his stare and stands there scratching his curly head. He strolls past nonchalantly and bumps into him, breaks as though to run, stops, frowns. He prods him with his elbow. He snaps the man's heavy suspenders. He raps him on the head with his cane, turns and kicks him with the back of his heel. He cocks his fists like a boxer, circles the man, punching at him with light jabs. He pulls his fat nose. He assumes a fencer's stance and thrusts at him with his cane. Nothing. Charlie shrugs irritably, turns away, spies the custard pies cooling on the counter. His eyes light up. He hefts a couple, judging their weight and balance, chooses one, turns to throw it. The fat man is as before, slumped heavily at the table, glowering into his bowl of hot soup. Charlie sidles up to the table, shows the man the pie, imposing it between his face and the soup, then hurries back to the counter and winds up to throw it. The man stares sullenly at the soup. Charlie's shoulders sag, he lowers the pie. The sparkle is gone from his eyes. He shakes himself. He squares his shoulders, dances closer, raises the pie again. He hops about aggressively, making faces and brandishing the pie, but all to no avail. He bangs on the table. He kicks the man in the shins. He bares his teeth, closes his eyes, and slaps the pie into his face. But when he opens his eyes he discovers, to his horror, that it is not the fat man he has struck, but the beautiful lady on the hallway landing. Her pale melancholy features are smeared with custard and pieces of pie are splattered over her long white gown. For a moment Charlie seems frozen with shock, his hands clutching his curly hair, his mouth agape, eyes popping with disbelief. Then he gives a little leap and goes dashing about frantically in search of something to use as a towel, discovers some heavy drapes on a window. He grabs up a handful and rushes back, reaches the drapes' length, and gets snapped backwards into a pratfall. He scrambles to his feet, tangled in drapes and pullcord. He lurches toward the lady, tears springing to his dark-lashed eyes, only to get jerked back again. The more he tries to free himself, the more entangled he becomes. The lady stands there by the balustrade, high above the checkerboard marble floor below, gazing off vacantly, wistfully, her face crusted with custard and pastry flakes. Bits slide slowly down her cheeks, dropping off her chin onto her bosom like melting candlewax. Charlie fights his way out of the curtains at last, dragging the pullcord with him. He unwinds himself from the cord in a speeded-up sequence of little twirls, leaps, and pas de chat, then bounds forward to wipe the_ lady's face, first with his hands, then his hat, the drapes, his jacket, his tie. She blinks inside all the paste, her lashes clotted with custard. He pulls out his shirttail, dabs gently at her eyes.
Which are not her eyes at all, but the old man's. Charlie is standing in the library, dabbing at the old man's rheumy eyes with his shirttail. The library is a shambles, the books spilled from their shelves, the paintings slashed and fallen, ashtrays tipped, vases and statuary smashed, glasses strewn, mirrors shattered, clocks split open, their works springing out like wild hairs. The old man is standing amid all this debris by his writing desk, tears running down his pale lined cheeks and into his white goatee, his top hat crushed, his hands in his pants. The ink bottle has been tipped over. The ink stands in a glossy black puddle, perfectly outlined against the desktop as though it might be made of rubber, like a child's practical joke. The old man, his goatee dripping with tears, gazes imploringly at Charlie, his hands moving funereally inside his black trousers. He wears a black armband, and his pince-nez dangles at his chest, the lenses fogged with a thousand tiny fractures. Charlie, dabbing still at the old man's eyes as though unable to stop himself, knocks one of the eyeballs loose. Slowly it oozes out of its socket, squirts free, and slides down his withered cheek, hanging there by a slippery thread. Desperately, Charlie tries to push the eyeball back in place, but it is difficult even to hang on to it: it keeps popping and slithering out of his grasp. And then the other one begins to ooze from its socket.
Charlie cries out and claps his hand against the extruding eye, only to find that what he has clapped is the maid's round white bottom. She is bent over, making up the crumpled bed, her bloomers around her ankles. Charlie recoils, staggering backwards, trips over his own cane, hooked in the bloomers, and tumbles into a stack of hatboxes. The maid peeks around at Charlie, past her radiant buttocks, then, reaching back and spreading her cheeks at him, purses her lips and blows him a kiss. He gasps, scrambles to his feet, wheels around and slaps up against the wall. He gropes his way in blind panic to a door, her bared behind flashing at him in a dozen mirrors, the walls turning soft as flesh. The air seems to be full of fluttering lingerie. He fumbles clumsily with the door handle, which keeps slipping out of his grasp as though greased, finally throws his shoulder against the door and crashes out of there.