A tiredness came over her, and leaning back for a moment she closed her heavy-lidded eyes. The sun and the hiking had tired her; it had been a long day. It was already past nine. Tomorrow’s weather was supposed to be sunny and warm, with highs in the mid-seventies, possibly clouding over in the afternoon. She wanted to be up early: breakfast at six, or say six-thirty at the latest, and out in the sun by seven. She would set her alarm for five-thirty; she could be in bed by half-past nine.
When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see that several of the lamps were out. A number of chairs and couches were empty. She glanced at her watch: it was nearly ten. She must have drifted off. Across the room, the elderly couple was no longer there. She wanted to say good night to them, but they must have gone up to their room while her eyes were closed. She wished they would come back so that she could say good night to them.
Wearily Judith pushed herself to her feet. She would sleep well tonight.
In her room Judith changed quickly into her nightgown and set her alarm for twenty of six. In bed she picked up the book on Victorian architecture, but she could scarcely keep her eyes open. Her body was deliciously tired; there was no need to read herself to sleep. Turning out the lamp beside the bed, she closed her eyes and felt herself falling down, down, toward deepest sleep.
But something was wrong; she could not fall asleep. She turned from side to side, searching restlessly for sleep, as if it lay waiting for her in some precise portion of the bed. No doubt her nap — that disastrous little nap — had taken the edge off her tiredness. And yet she was tired, she longed for sleep. It was a mistake not to have read a little, as she always did. When she looked at the clock, she saw with dismay that it was eleven-thirty-five. Even if she fell asleep instantly she would get only six hours of sleep. It was hopeless. She felt doomed.
Judith turned on the bed lamp, grimly opened the book on Victorian architecture, and began to read. The sentences struck her as at once childish and pedantic, as if she were being lectured by a bright eighth-grader who had taken notes from a dubious encyclopedia. Instead of flowing from one to the next, the sentences stumbled against each other and walked off in every direction, rubbing their shins. The margins were comically wide. For the sake of the photographs the text had been printed on shiny stock, and the bedlamp glared on the print, which for that matter should have been two points larger. The stillness of the room, the whiteness and dryness of her fingers in the glow of the lamp, her blue leather suitcase standing stiffly on the rug, all these began to irritate her, to fill her with anger and unhappiness. Even the steady, monotonous beating of her heart exasperated her — she could feel it in there, drudging away, preventing sleep.
She slammed the book shut and sat up. It was nearly midnight. Oh, it was hopeless; she was making things worse by staying in bed. She needed to move about, to do something; and it came to her that she would return the book to the library.
Quickly she threw the covers off and changed into a sweater, jeans, and slippers.
Her eyelids were heavy but she felt restlessly awake as she walked swiftly along the dim-lit corridor past dark, slumbering doors. At the top of the main stairway she placed her hand on the smooth wood of the banister and hurried down the thick-carpeted stairs. At the bottom she saw light coming from the main lounge. Softly she walked over to the open doorway; she was surprised to see two elderly women reading quietly in armchairs. They did not look up, and Judith tiptoed away. She went back through the lobby, turned down a small corridor, and entered the Winter Lounge. A single lamp was lit; the lounge was deserted. The door of the library was open and a faint light streamed into the darkness of the lounge.
When Judith entered the library she did not at first see the dark woman. A single dim lamp was lit, on a little table beside an empty armchair with a flowered slipcover, and her gaze first fell on the lamplit pink flowers of the chair. The woman sat alone on a dark couch across from the lamp. She turned her head as Judith entered.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Judith said sharply. But of course the woman would be. She was everywhere.
“Were you looking for me?” the other asked.
“No,” Judith said quietly, as if she were suppressing a shout. “I couldn’t sleep. I came to return a book.” She held up the book, as if to show that she wasn’t lying. She entered the room quickly and began looking nervously about, peering at the dark rows of books, searching for the proper space.
“Almost no one comes in here. I hope you won’t mind if I speak frankly. You see, I have feelings sometimes, deep within, and I trust what they tell me. This morning on the tower I felt so certain you wanted to speak to me.”
“To speak to you?” Holding the book in both hands, as if it were as large as a storm window, Judith turned to look at her.
“Yes, to speak. To me. I felt so certain that was what you wanted.”
Judith laughed lightly and, raising a hand in nervous irritation, smoothed back her dark hair. “I really think you — and you say you have these feelings?”
“Yes. I feel that you are so unhappy.”
The words burst into flame within Judith. She could scarcely breathe.
“I see. Thank you very much.”
“Please. There’s no need to sound that way. To hold things inside. Won’t you sit down?”
“I’m perfectly all right. Thank you. I came to return a book.” She thrust it between two books as if she had stolen it. “There. Thank you. I am perfectly fine.”
Judith turned and walked violently from the room.
She hurried up the stairway and along the dark corridor. Once she nearly stumbled, and gave a gasp that seemed as loud as a cry. In her room she locked the door and lay down on the bed. Her heart was beating savagely. Rage surged in her — the rudeness of that witch, the insolence. She was obviously insane. “You see, I have feelings sometimes, deep within.” She had spoken gently, calmly; she was insane. “I feel you are so unhappy.” How dare she feel anything at all? That demented woman had looked at her with pity. Judith sat up abruptly and walked over to the mirror on the door. In the dim lamplight her face looked pale and worn, her dark eyes mournful. She returned to the bed and lay down. Ah, how dare she? “I feel you are so unhappy.” The sentimental words burned in her — she was burning up in them. Unhappiness like a fire broke out in her. Alone in her room, Judith wept.
The tears shocked her; she couldn’t stop. She wept because the woman had looked at her kindly and with pity. She wept because she was alone in a place where lovers lay on the rocks. She wept because things had not turned out the way she had hoped. She wept because she had loved the wrong man, she wept because she was no longer young, she wept because she had started and could not stop. She wept like a child, passionately, with terrible conviction. Her tears seemed to burn a flaming passage through her life. But it was intolerable. She detested it — the banality of tears. Grief wasn’t a flame — it was riot, it was madness. It had sprung to life at a madwoman’s touch. There was no reason for it. But it had fooled her; it must have been waiting there all along. She wept again for her beautiful weak man, who had done such terrible harm. She had been his greatest accomplice. With his hands in his pockets he had come strolling into her life, looking nervously about. He had not been sure, he had never been sure. And she, overflowing with new powers of sympathy, had beautifully understood. She had blossomed with understanding, she had grown brilliant with it. And so he had settled down uncertainly, looking at her with his beautiful nervous eyes, and she had dared to be happy: she had done that thing. And he had left, in stages; he had shown weakness even in that, while she in her panic had spun round him glittering delicate threads of understanding. Judith wept for those glittering threads, and for the fire that had raged in her, and for the deadness that had slowly come over things. She wept at the waste of it. She shook with weeping, it poured out of her, she couldn’t stop.