The only thing that worried me was that I saw so little of Carla, who, though she waited patiently at the flat for my return, had to leave at eleven to catch the last bus back to her home. More and more often as autumn merged into winter and bad weather increased the difficulties of getting about, I came back so late that we could spend only a few minutes together. Though she assured me she didn’t mind, it distressed me to think of her wasting her evenings like this. I vaguely supposed I ought to urge her to stay at home instead of coming so far, in such miserable circumstances, for the sake of so short a meeting. Yet I never tried seriously to prevent her from coming. The fact was, I felt I couldn’t have carried on at all without these brief encounters, which enabled me to keep under control the anxiety that now always tormented me while we were apart.
This anxiety was all the time growing stronger, in the longer and longer periods of separation from her, when she seemed incredible to me, as if I had dreamed her, and I struggled vainly to recall her real face. Her mysterious aspect appeared more and more frequently in my thoughts. I saw her as some lovely, tall princess, with her white skin made whiter by contrast with her lustrous dark hair and darkly shining eyes; and this was all I could see. It was as if I’d never seen how she looked in real life but only overlaid by the strangeness, the unattainable otherness, of her dream counterpart. Whenever we were together I would keep gazing at her, trying to learn her real face like a lesson, in which I many times thought I’d become perfect. But afterwards she again wouldn’t seem true; mystery would once more obscure her. Only the strangeness seemed real, the reality as elusive as ever. Every time we parted I was afraid it was the end, that she was lost to me and would never come back.
My rational self wouldn’t acknowledge these childish fears or tried not to. But as time went on they grew more powerful and, refusing to stay in the background, forced themselves into my consciousness. Then I could only exist for the moment when I’d catch sight of her and prove them false. Day by day, tension was increasing, anxiety gradually infiltrating everywhere but so insidiously I hardly noticed the process till it was complete, and I woke one morning to a different world, as if, while I slept, a giant’s hand had jolted everything into a new and hateful perspective.
It now seemed to me that there was a worldwide conspiracy among people and things to keep me from Carla. Every day, all day, I was contending with people, stupid or obstructive or malicious or inefficient, impeding and delaying me. And with frustrating things: trains and buses that slid away as I pursued them; streets leading me astray or becoming impassable dead ends; fogs blinding me; gales snatching vital papers out of my hands; the frequent sluicing punishment of sleet and rain. And always, worse than any of these, the conspiracy of the seconds and minutes to group themselves into hours — hours I should have been spending with Carla — until the agonizing climax of uncertainty when I began to doubt whether I’d get back in time to see her at all.
Gradually, I was losing heart, discouraged by my repeated failures. And now anxiety began to invade even the precious hours when we were together. I couldn’t entirely suppress the thought of her waiting for me so long alone; and perhaps an unconscious hope of expiation increased the despondency her presence could no longer charm away as in the past. Though I was ashamed of myself, I started being sulky and difficult with her. She was always the same, calm and sweet-tempered, apparently unaware of my bad behaviour, which she took with a smile of detached good nature that only made me want to break out in fresh excesses, to say rude, hurtful, unforgivable things. Yet I absolutely adored her; she was hardly ever out of my thoughts; night and day I longed for her with a passionate tenderness. I can’t explain now, any more than at the time I could understand, why as soon as we came face to face there seemed only her dark romantic beauty, as if her real self eluded me.
Finding myself, as it were, in love with a lovely dream, I was slowly becoming resentful and discontented. I felt cheated, angry, aggrieved. The familiar bitter grievance I’d felt for so long because people and things were opposed to me gradually added itself to these other resentments, extending finally to include Carla herself, leading up to the shocking revelation that she had become a part of the universal hostility I was fighting. I was, I remember, giving my usual account of the houses I’d just seen, when, looking at her serene, composed face, I suddenly felt her strength, on which I had always depended, turned into an alien driving force, compelling me to continue this unprofitable search.
Instead of going on with my objective report, I began to complain resentfully of all the frustrations, discomforts and difficulties I’d suffered during the day; and after this fell more and more frequently into the habit of querulousness, voicing my complaints as bitterly as though she were directly to blame for all I had endured. My resentment seemed to rise from somewhere deep down in me, from some spring of which I knew nothing; and I thus made the disturbing discovery of some obscure process going on in me that I could neither understand nor control.
I’d always regarded as pure superstition the notion that the Bureau exerted an evil influence over those who had dealings with it. But that something was causing me to deteriorate I was forced to admit, feeling my will, integrity, independence gradually undermined, till it seemed as if the very structure of my being was threatened with ultimate collapse. The strange and frightening thing was that I made no attempt to arrest this destructive process, which, though alarming, actually had a kind of morbid fascination for me.
Nothing could keep me away from the Housing Bureau these days. Though Carla and I had originally decided always to keep the weekends free for one another, I’d lately taken to visiting the place on Saturdays and Sundays as well as during the week, drawn there by this inexplicable attraction that had nothing to do with my longing to find a home. When Christmas approached, I was actually depressed by the prospect of the Bureau being closed for several days, a circumstance my normal self would have welcomed.
I wasn’t much looking forward to Christmas in any case, as Carla’s mother insisted on keeping her at home to help with the extra work entailed by the festivities. I’d agreed to share their dinner on Christmas Day, in spite of having received — how I hardly know — an impression somewhat less than friendly from my prospective mother-in-law on the few occasions we’d met. When the time arrived, on top of everything else, I had a bad cold, caught, I suppose, in the course of my uncomfortable travels. I didn’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything and willingly promised Carla to spend Christmas Eve indoors.
However, during the afternoon I became restless, wandering from one room to the other and wondering whether, in view of the days which were to elapse before the Bureau reopened, I might not be missing a chance by not going there now. In the end, I seized my coat and hurried down the stairs. I must have meant to go all along.
Outside it was freezing hard, the streets were bleak and deserted, in contrast to the lighted trees standing gaily in many windows. I could see rooms decorated with evergreens and family parties assembled, as though everyone were at home, and told myself that for once the Bureau would be empty.