I don’t know what childish impulse made me hide behind it now when I caught sight of her through the open door of the dining-room, looking lovelier than I’d ever seen her in a dress of some silvery stuff, from which her bare arms and shoulders rose like a naiad’s from some moon-bright cascade. As if mesmerized by her cool beauty, I stood staring while she put the finishing touches to the table, where tall candelabra shed their calm light on a profusion of fruit and flowers, sparkling glass and silver and gem-like ornaments. This dazzling display of luxury contrasted most strangely with the cold desolate room I’d just left, renewing my sense of grievance. I was wondering how on earth she and her mother could afford such lavishness, when, as if in answer to my unspoken question, a third person appeared, crossed the hall without turning towards me and entered the dining-room with the confident step of a man on his own home ground.
I knew this must be the official I’d never met, a total stranger to me, of whose face I hadn’t caught a glimpse, whose name even was unknown to me. All I could see of him was his back, as he stood beside Carla; yet there seemed something familiar about that massive outline — so much so that I felt I’d have recognized him if he’d turned around. Occupied with this odd impression, I missed what he said and saw only Carla’s responsive glance of intimacy; the brilliant breathtaking loveliness of her face caused me a sharp pang as she lifted it to him, for I’d believed that uncovered beauty and intimate smile belonged to me alone. It was almost as cold in the hall as it had been in the library, yet I felt a curious hot shock of anger, as if I’d been robbed by this stranger, whose dark silhouette produced the effect of being slightly larger than life, as he now leaned towards her with a solicitude that confounded me still further by suggesting a deeper familiarity, as of figures not quite remembered but seen in the same pose long ago.
The mists of childhood beginning to thicken around me, I reluctantly groped my way back among ghosts and half memories. To the sharp pain and angry shock, the man had added something heavily ominous that belonged to the past; he himself seemed the core of some old dream that was almost nightmare — from which, I suddenly realized, it was necessary for me to escape immediately at all costs. Without a word, without another glance in the direction of the dining-room, I took my coat and fled.
At first, stumbling away from the big house in the icy dark, my only thought was to remove myself as quickly as possible and as far from the place where imperfectly recognized ghosts had confused and tormented me. Then, recovering quickly once I was alone, I got my bearings from the lights of the bus terminal. Luckily a bus was on the point of leaving, and, sitting among the empty seats, being carried towards my flat, I felt my normal equilibrium return.
Why had I rushed away like that? What had happened? I asked myself, with an uneasy feeling that I’d acted foolishly. Nothing, apparently, had happened except in my head, where momentarily that larger-than-life form again loomed up, the personification of some inescapable threat at the heart of an old dream I couldn’t entirely forget but refused to remember, concentrating instead on the real incident.
My memory of recent events was quite clear, even though obscure dreamlike notions still haunted the back of my mind. Ignoring these, I saw how badly I had behaved, and the instant I got home telephoned to apologize, telling Carla my cold had suddenly got much worse, which seemed the only possible justification for my abrupt disappearance. Yet, even while I was speaking humbly to her, genuinely contrite, I was aware of a grievance, a vague suspicion; I couldn’t help feeling she’d treated me badly, though she’d always before been so considerate. Listening to her low musical voice, in which I could detect no personal warmth, I began to feel immensely removed from her; a million miles of darkness divided us.
But then I was suddenly projected into a quite different magic world, where depression, grievance and distrust couldn’t exist. I’d expected to be alone the next evening; now Carla proposed spending it with me, her mother having received a last-minute invitation, so that she herself would be free. This seemed to prove my importance to her, and immediately everything came all right again. Only in my jealous imagination had she smiled at a stranger with the intimacy she reserved for me. The prospect of her visit was like a wonderful surprise present; in the delight and excitement of its reception I expected perfection in every detail, my cold was to cure itself automatically during the night. I felt disappointed and cross when it seemed rather worse in the morning.
At any rate, I thought, there would be no temptation today to go out, since the Housing Bureau was closed. But as the afternoon dragged on, restless anxiety once more afflicted me. The sombre cloud-roof, which had all day covered the sky, towards three o’clock became in the west faintly burnished, soon afterwards extinguishing the last of the daylight. By four it was as dark as midnight.
Still three more hours had to pass before I could even begin to expect Carla. How would I ever get through three whole hours? My impatient longing for her was insistent, distracting; far worse than the dull pain behind my forehead. I was aware, too, of another unanalysed feeling, sinister and heavy and uncomprehended, fixed at the root of my anxiety, which I would not examine. I couldn’t stand it and, suddenly jumping up, went out of the flat and down the stairs; I simply had to go out — to do something.
The air out of doors, though bitingly cold, seemed somehow oppressive; some blocked electrical tension, struggling to find an outlet, exerted its pressure upon my nerves as I tramped along heavily under my aching head, not thinking of where I was going.
Seeing lighted trees in the windows and wreaths on the doors, family parties assembled in decorated rooms, I seemed to have gone back to Christmas Eve. Everything was repeating itself: the empty streets and these unreal celebrations behind the glass, which might have been taking place on another planet for all the contact I could ever conceivably have with them. It didn’t surprise me to find myself in front of the Housing Bureau. Where else could I have arrived?
But then I saw the place closed and dark, a metal grille barricading the entrance. Of course. The Christmas holiday; how could I have forgotten? I felt a passing uneasiness, troubled by my unnatural-minded vagueness. Deciding to put it down to my headache, I promptly forgot all about it, advancing, for no particular reason, towards the protective bars and running my hands over the cold steel. If I hadn’t done this I would never have discovered the existence of an unobtrusive opening about the size and shape of a man; a wicket at which I gazed for a while in perplexity, wondering why it had been left open and whether I ought to shut it.
Having made up my dull mind it was no business of mine, I was about to start walking home when, in the street I’d thought absolutely deserted, a passer-by stopped to stare at me with a persistent disapproving inquisitiveness that could only mean that he regarded me as a suspicious character loitering there. My reactions were not normal just then. It didn’t occur to me that, had I drawn his attention to the open gate and told him what was in my mind, his suspicions would have been removed and he would most likely have proved quite friendly. Instead, for some reason, I felt obliged to remain silent and motionless as long as he was watching me. He walked on, constantly turning his head to look back at me as long as I was in sight, reluctant to leave me to my evil devices. And only when he at last disappeared did I feel free to go home. Then, turning in that direction, I saw a whole group of people coming towards me whom I’d been too preoccupied to notice before, presumably from some local gathering that had just broken up.