Instead, I saw, as soon as I entered, that it was exceptionally crowded. The flaring lights and the heat generated by so many tightly packed bodies made me feel dazed at first. I couldn’t see Ginger’s desk and started pushing my way through the people, who seemed to obstruct me deliberately, pressing so closely about me that I was very soon brought to a standstill. A heavy hand fell on my arm, and I realized that I’d been stopped by one of the attendants, who usually did nothing more active than stand about reading the newspapers, except when required to act as stretcher-bearers. Ordering the man to release me, I asked indignantly since when it had been part of his duty to keep applicants away from the officials. He seemed a bully of the worst type, for he only gripped me tighter and said roughly, ‘I saw what you were up to, shoving people about and creating a disturbance; and so did all these …’ jerking his head to indicate the circle of people, whose faces, corpse-like under the lights, ringed us around.
Now I noticed with surprise how they, usually so indifferent to what went on, were staring at us with evident interest. Many of them, eager to curry favour, nodded or made sounds of assent. I was disgusted by their readiness to bear false witness against me and to agree with any preposterous statement. It made me furious, too, to feel the attendant’s dirty fingers nipping my arm all the time; but I knew I was unequal to a tussle with him and instead directed my indignation again the bystanders.
‘Why do you take sides with this fellow?’ I asked angrily. ‘Don’t you see you’re only making things worse for yourselves? He’s supposed to be a public servant. You, the people who pay his wages, do you pay to be bullied? It would be better if you got together and lodged a complaint against him.’ No one answered me. Nobody said a word. The circle of white faces, distorted by black shadows, had the look of identical white paper masks, ghoulish, grotesque and unreal. In a final attempt to rouse them to some response, I went on, ‘Look at the way this place is run — it’s a perfect scandal.The high authorities show not the slightest consideration for the people they’re supposed to be helping. But if everyone complained, something would have to be done in the way of improvement.’
There was dead silence when I finished speaking. The usual drone of voices at the various desks had ceased. To my amazement, I saw that I really did seem to have disrupted the normal routine. People had everywhere broken their ranks and were craning towards me, leaning on one another’s shoulders to see me better; livid, shadow-slashed faces, all with the weird family likeness the lighting gave, were everywhere staring at me. But now that I’d gained this universal attention, my indignation deserted me. My head felt hot and heavy; the mass of identical, undifferentiated faces bewildered me. Suddenly it struck me that my own face must look just the same as theirs, and for some reason this was both depressing and profoundly distasteful to me. I let my head droop as if to conceal my resemblance to all these people. I had the feeling I was letting them down. But all I could do was wait passively for the attendant to release me, which he showed no sign of doing, glancing about all the time as if expecting the arrival of a superior who would give him his orders. Such a person, in fact, was now approaching. A head could be seen, shining fierily under the lights above the disguising eye-shade which hid the face I knew must be Ginger’s, even when he came close enough to whisper to the man holding me, who at last, with extreme promptness, let me go.
I was struck by the way the onlookers, losing all interest in me, turned back, like so many clockwork figures, to their respective queues as throughout the room the usual sluggish procedure went on again, as if it had never been, could never be, interrupted. For a moment this distracted me. By the time I’d realized I should have been thanking Ginger for his intervention, he was already hurrying back to his desk. I had to follow him through the crowd, pursuing him with my thanks under difficulties, unable to tell whether or not he was listening to what I said. Since he ignored me, I took my place at the end of the queue in front of his desk, automatically rubbing my arm, still sore from the attendant’s grasp.
When I arrived before him, I was astonished by the hostility with which I was greeted. ‘There’s never anything for you at weekends. Why can’t you keep away instead of coming here making trouble?’
He sounded so irritable that I hastily answered him, ‘I didn’t mean to make trouble for you. I only said people ought to complain to the higher authorities, and you told me yourself —’
‘We’re the ones who’ll have to suffer for it,’ he interrupted tartly, at the same time beginning to collect various objects from his desk and standing up, preparatory to departure.
‘Please don’t go yet!’ I exclaimed quickly, making a futile attempt to intercept him. ‘You surely can’t believe I’d be so ungrateful —’ But he was determined not to give me a hearing and walked off without even saying goodbye.
There was nothing left for me to do but go back to my flat, which I did, very much perplexed by the sudden change in someone who, up to now, had always been affable and obliging. His bad temper struck me as unreasonable. And it was certainly most unfortunate in view of the time that would have to elapse before I saw him again, as he was bound to retain an unfavourable impression of me till after the holiday, when it might be too late to eradicate it. There were other aspects of the incident that I found incomprehensible and disturbing. If he’d really believed I was inciting people against him, why had he come to my rescue? And what could he possibly have said to the attendant to make him drop my arm like a hot potato?
It was partly to rid my mind of these unanswerable questions, which continued to worry me the next day, that I set off for Carla’s home in the early afternoon, arriving at the bus terminus before the short winter daylight had come to an end. All my previous visits had been in the evening; I’d got only a vague impression of large houses standing in their own gardens. Now I was delighted by the openness of the scene, to which many tall trees gave an almost rural look. I felt as if I’d arrived in the country, and my pleasure made me realize how much I’d missed the wide landscape, the hills and valleys and woods which had always been my background before I came to the city, and how unsuccessful I’d been in making myself feel at home here.
Stimulated by the frosty, clear air and the glow of the setting sun upon snow-covered lawns and lanes, I decided to explore a little before going indoors, as Carla wouldn’t be expecting me yet. I forgot all about my cold as I hurried up a steep hill, hoping to reach a point where the houses gave way to open country before darkness fell. In this I was disappointed: I only managed to lose myself and hadn’t the faintest idea where I was when twilight deepened into dark. This was really awkward, as there wasn’t a soul about of whom I could inquire. I thought of asking at one of the houses, but they all stood far back from the road, the street lamps were few and far between, I could scarcely see the black roofs looming against the sky; and, far too tired to walk up one of the long drives, I kept on blindly, in a kind of blank stupor of weariness, arriving finally at Carla’s house completely worn out and in anything but the mood for a party.
She opened the door herself and must have noticed how exhausted I was, for she asked whether I’d like to rest in the library for a bit before meeting her mother and the official who was also to be their guest — the only one of the tenants to stay over the holiday. This I was very glad to do, grateful for the chance to recover in private, and, as soon as I was alone, stretched out on a sofa. But I could only relax for a few minutes, after which my usual anxiety again claimed me. The sofa was hard and the room too cold for comfort. Unable to hear a sound from the rest of the house, I soon started feeling aggrieved and neglected and wondering why I was left alone there so long. At the end of an interminable half-hour I got up and began to prowl around the room, keenly aware of Carla’s heartlessness in abandoning me, with my bad cold, in this freezing room. All of a sudden it became impossible to stay there any longer. I went out into the passage, somehow found my way through the strange house without encountering anyone, and arrived finally in the entrance hall where, ages ago as it seemed, I had hung my coat.