An hour later, when he sticks his hand into the dispenser, he finds there are no towels left. He then moves on to the spare roll of toilet paper in the medicine chest, and when he has used that up, he goes on to what little there is left on the roll. He sketches silhouettes of fleeing men on the bathroom tiles; simple geometric forms on the ceiling; a big face with no features on the mirror; arrows on the floor. . He goes back into the bedroom. He fills the walls with a spectacular desert landscape: three UFOs are about to land and there’s a laughing moon in the background. Then, unsatisfied, he scratches it all out. When his felt-tipped pen runs out, he searches through all his pockets: his shirt, his jacket, his raincoat. . When he doesn’t find a single pen, he opens Hildegarda’s purse and empties the contents onto the night table. With her eyebrow pencil he draws the shadow of a woman on the bathroom door and, taking no time to look for another surface, on top of that he draws a pyramid and shades in the volume. On top of that he draws the corner of a room and the figure of a girl studying a boring book, crying shiny tears of silver or mercury, whose brilliance he represents with a multitude of tiny rays. On top of all these figures he draws a horse on fire, a skyscraper with oval windows, a shoe without a sole. . until the door is nothing but a huge black spot, a tangle of doodles, a mess. Halfway through drawing a hat on the lampshade of the table lamp, the eyebrow pencil runs out on him. He finds a lipstick among Hildegarda’s things on the night table. He finishes the hat and decorates the windowpanes with a drawing of what can be seen through the window: the night and a mastodontic building. On top of that, he draws what might be going on in each of the rooms. The lipstick doesn’t last long, though, but he keeps on drawing, now scratching on the glass with the metal rim of the lipstick case. When he can’t get any more use out of it, he throws it on the floor, puts on his pajamas, and goes out into the hall, which is long and carpeted in gray, with cream-colored walls and dozens of doors on either side. Humbert is surprised: the whole hall is full of pairs of shoes lined up outside the door, waiting to be cleaned. At the door to room 1030, there is a pair of brown men’s shoes, with traces of mud. He bends down, picks them up, and deposits them in front of door 1034. At the door to 1035, he gathers up a pair of black men’s shoes and takes them to door 1030. At the door to 1022, he finds one pair of women’s green high heels and one pair of men’s gray shoes. He takes the men’s shoes and puts them in the wastebasket next to the elevator. He sniffs the women’s shoes and leaves them at door 1028. At the doorway to room 1033, he turns his head, looks back at the wastebasket, and finds that it doesn’t go with the rest of the décor. He lifts it up and goes down the stairs to the next floor. At the door to 904, he sees a pair of navy blue women’s flats. He picks them up and leaves the wastebasket in their place. In exchange, he leaves the shoes at door 909 and, as he does, hears a conversation inside: a man and a woman talking, but, hard as he listens, he can’t make out the words. The shoes from 910 he leaves at 914 and the shoes from 914 at 920. He hasn’t got many steps farther when he hears a door open. He doesn’t dare turn around until he hears the door close again. Then he turns slowly and discovers that the shoes he left at 920 have disappeared. But the ones he left at 914 are in the same place. Is it possible that the people in 920 opened the door and took the shoes in without realizing that they weren’t theirs, not remembering that they hadn’t even left any shoes outside the door? In front of 932, he hears a door open down the hall. He stands still. He sees a man stick his head out of room 936, look from side to side, and, on seeing him, quickly close the door. Humbert finds it so strange that he stands right there, motionless, on the spot. About a minute later, the door to room 936 opens again, and the same man sticks his head out again; seeing him still there, he quickly closes it again. Humbert is trying to decide whether to knock on that door (he doesn’t quite know why: perhaps to have a little chat) or draw a phenomenal fireworks display on it, when he sees a man come out of the door to room 943, clinging to a woman who is kissing him all over. He says goodbye to her softly, closes the door, and, out in the hall, looks uncomfortable when he sees Humbert. Even so, he goes on to door 936, knocks, and when (after quite a while) it opens (Humbert can’t see who opens it), he goes in. Ten minutes later, Humbert sees how, without making the slightest bit of noise, the man who previously stuck his head out twice appears, silently closes the door, looks at Humbert out of the corner of his eye (and acts as if he weren’t there), and knocks on the door to 943. The same woman, who had just taken such effusive leave of the man who had then gone into room 936, opens it.
Humbert feels that he must make note of all that, but he doesn’t have paper or pencil handy and, even if he had, he strongly doubted he would know what he ought to write. He feels a little tired. There he is, running up and down instead of lying in bed. He decides to walk up to his floor, but when he reaches the stairwell, he goes down instead of up.
He goes down to the eighth floor, where he crosses paths with a bellboy who greets him with a broad smile. Humbert buttons one of the buttons on his pajama top.
On the seventh floor, Humbert presses the button to the elevator. He goes down to the concourse level. He goes to the bar. He finds it closed. He gets back into the elevator. He goes up to the fourteenth floor. He walks around, listening at the doors, switching the wastebaskets around. On the twelfth floor, he sits down to rest awhile. On the eleventh, he hears moaning and thudding at door 1109, like someone being hit; at door 1118, he hears a player piano; at door 1132, he hears rock and roll.
He goes down to the tenth floor, goes into his room, lies down on the bed, and looks at the desert landscape he had drawn (and then scratched out) on the wall in front of him until 7:45.
Hildegarda wakes up at 7:45. She opens one eye, looking for Humbert, and sees him lying on the bed, staring fixedly at the wall in front of him. She too turns her gaze toward the wall in front of them: seeing it all marked up, she gapes, gets out of bed, and walks all around the room examining the scrawling all over the place.
They have breakfast at the hotel bar, and taking their time, they make their way to the Art Institute. Humbert spends an eternity in front of Nighthawks. Hildegarda sleeps through it, her head resting on his shoulder. Then they go to the gallery. The woman in charge (fat, wearing a polka-dot dress and coke bottle glasses) is very pleased he has decided to come in the end. Hildegarda walks around the room looking over the canvases. They are almost all up, except for one that two men are hanging at that very moment. In the painting, two men (one of whose glasses, fluorescent, are stuck on with glue) are hanging a painting of two men who are hanging a painting.
Humbert phones Helena, who seems to be in a relatively good mood; undoubtedly better than the day before, in any case. She notifies him that they have been able to arrange an exhibition in New Zealand and that Xano has finally got in from Japan. There had been problems with his flight, and he had had to change planes in Los Angeles. She asks what he thinks of the preparations for the show there. Humbert says it looks too crowded and, besides, it was harebrained to open a show on such a strange day, right at year’s end. Helena says that it’s the fault of the people in Chicago, and that when he gets back he’ll have to start working on the New York show. Because — in light of the news that a gallery belonging to the competition is about to fold — she’s considering the idea of acquiring it — as it’s a good buy — and fixing it up so as to have three galleries in the city. So what does he think of having a triple show instead of a double one, if the deal with the third gallery turns out? Does he think he’s up to it? Humbert offers her all kinds of assurances. She shouldn’t even think twice about it. Not only does he have it all in his head, he’s brimming with energy. He wouldn’t shrink from filling up fifty galleries at once. Helena insists that he musn’t count on work already completed, as they have already placed it in other shows and, in New York, above all, they need something surprising. She asks him not to let her down as Heribert had so recently and, before him, Hans, Herman. . When is he coming back? Humbert says he will most likely stay another day, maybe two. Helena tells him she has arranged to spend New Year’s Eve at Hannah’s house. He says he’ll do his best to be there, but he wants to take advantage of his stay to visit a few museums and see some people, and in the event all this takes time and he isn’t back by New Year’s, she shouldn’t worry. She tells him she’d like to spend the last night of their first year together, together. He says he would, too. They blow each other kisses and say goodbye.