I daresay it was nothing but rebellious courtesy (with a tang of habit, perhaps) that prompted me, a very spoiled person as we all are, to muffle my private need for revenge in the decorous silence of the house. Before arrest I enjoyed doing housework merely because I didn't care to comply with the requests of my father, which I considered unjust. I had been brought up "in a genteel, almost aristocratic family" and had not been meant for sweeping floors. Yet, labor for me has always been the deliverance from another feeling, darker and more bitter, which I could not myself have defined at times. This did not enter my mind at the moment, as groaning with rage I ransacked the supply closet for something better than a ragless broom. Then, canceling my search, I dashed out into the parlor and ran up the stairs. The marble staircase had a runner down the center, dusty red. Like a carpet for royalty, it showed His Excellency the way. What a title.

Two in the afternoon. The large square corridor with mirrors in gilt frames, with a score of bentwood chairs placed decorously along the walls, with a crystal luster in the middle, was sleeping, and in the quiet everything seemed unwantedly pensive. Only the chopping of meat for tomorrow's dinner could be heard from the kitchen downstairs, and otherwise it was dreadfully silent. Outside the dull, windless day dawned gray, and because all the window curtains were lowered, darkness soon descended and in it I was standing alone, armed with something that might have been a pistol or might have been a dustpan. I pushed aside curtains that were like vines, and felt over innumerable feet of dark walls for electric light switches. Hamilton's house seemed like an enormous labyrinth; once I even stumbled upon the keys of a ghostly piano, and realized that I must have come across some sort of music room. The dim light shone through the curtains melancholically and almost mysteriously. Mutely the varied surfaces presented themselves: the dusk-rose velvet of the drawn drapes, the hush of the tufted rug on the floor, with its faded floral pattern. The grand piano glimmered dully with its black, bent, glossy side. Does Hamilton play?

I opened the window, and, leaning on the sill, stared meditatively into the distance. The lowland peninsula view at first seemed to me something I accepted with a shock of amused recognition, all because of those giant pine trees around the house which were likely imported from upstate. But gradually the figures of those out-of-place giants became stranger and stranger to the eye, the closer I inspected them. In the lecture halls of my university in Buffalo I had felt the same superimposed quality of a bought and borrowed century of trees; I had always felt like a flea rather than a prospective lawyer, unstayed by the irony of the gigantic pines in the school backyard. Now, beyond the trees, beyond the toy roofs of our neighbors, there was a low dove-gray horizon, with threatening storm clouds inscribed remotely into the misty sky above it. Somewhere far away, behind the gloomy veil of fog and rain, all the lights were already going on in New-York. Somewhere.

I stood motionless in front of the window, listening to the wind. It sounded like the murmur of a million voices, rising and swelling a little, now and then, with gusts of emotion; like a reminder of gay, exciting things that happened a while since. Within this vapor of blended melodies one could hear now and then, as if released, an almost articulate spurt of vivid laughter, or the rumbling of the trolley, but it was all really too far for the eye to distinguish any movement behind the giant fence of the trees. And then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was the absence of my own voice from that concord.

The wind lashed furiously into the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like scarlet flags. It was time to go. I closed the window, adjusted the curtains, and arranged my apron. Then I headed to the staircase, but stopped as I was passing Hamilton's office: he was talking on the telephone which happened to be plugged opposite his door across the corridor. I wanted to hear what he was saying, but the door was open only just enough to allow the cord to pass through, and I couldn't stop by to listen without outing myself. Hamilton was like one of those blind pale spiders you see in old gardens. Sitting in the middle of a luminous web and giving little jerks to this or that strand. His web was spread all over the house as he listened from his den like God from Heaven. I stepped over the chord and pressed on.

The last room that I decided to visit turned out to be the storage room; or at least it seemed like it. The furniture was of different sorts, everything was in disorder, dusty and filthy, picked up here and there, and all utterly worthless. There were two card-tables, a chest of drawers made of elder, a big deal table that must have come from the kitchen, chairs, and a sofa with trellis-work back. The filthy wall paper hung in tatters from the walls, the room was musty, as though it hadn't been aired for many days, and no wonder: there weren't any windows. I didn't much care for furniture, for tables and chairs and lamps and rugs and things—perhaps because in my opulent childhood I was taught to regard material wealth as a given. At the first glance, there really seemed to be nothing interesting, and yet I do not hesitate to say (and indeed this is the reason why I linger gratefully in that gauze-gray room of memories) that among the twenty or so subjects of forgotten tangibility, something managed to draw my attention. There was a cradle in the corner, cobwebbed. The woolen bedding had absorbed moisture from the air, it was like a wetted baby blanket and smelled faintly of damp sheep. It looked almost alive, like it would wince and shrivel back into its wooden shell when touched. I sunk my hands into its soft resistant flesh. Perhaps there was something, or someone, in it, in another place, another life. Suddenly I felt exhausted. I thought of my mother, holding to her bosom a phantom of my stillborn brother, her breasts leaking.

Has Hamilton children? Where are they? I thought.
The sound of rapid footsteps came from the corridor. I stood still for a moment, listening carefully. But all was quiet.

For a long while I stared with smarting eyes into the cradle. Who was the mysterious woman whom Hamilton got with child? I imagined her, against all expectations, a young, understanding redhead who would explain to him with great tenderness his misconceptions, and I imagined as he would deliberately dissimulate her great love for him because she was too young. Why did it sound so familiar? Now, squirming and pleading with my own memory, I saw my mother, a redhead in a livid summer dress, under the tumbling mist, as she ran, panting ecstatically, down the front porch towards the family car, brandy in hand. I was but a child when she died.
Suddenly a voice came from downstairs:

"Steven!"

Cursing under my breath I left the room, shut the door, and ran to the parlor. Hamilton stood there, in the middle of the room, and wore an expression of such intense displeasure that it seemed as though he swallowed a lemon. A pathetic skeleton glow came from the luster above, penetrating the darkness of the room and revealing the weak red gloss of Hamilton's nose.

"You can't just do that", he said

"Do what?"

"You can't go about doing things without my
permission. It's outrageous."

I looked around.

"Sorry. It was rather dark."

"I can't stand it. Why turn the lights on in the middle of the day?"

"Because I can't see a thing."

"Neither can I," said Hamilton. "But I have a justification a fearful headache."

"Shall I open up the curtains, then?"

"No."

"Why, do you burn in the sun or something?"

Hamilton responded with a dry–that is, irritated–gaze.
"It is very possible."

"Please don't think it too familiar," I began calmly, gloating beforehand over the venomous phrases I was about to utter. "But you remind me of a main character from a novel I've read."

"What novell?"

"I can't recall the name of it. But In this novel a recurrent image is that of light and dark. The brave pinpoints of light are always contrasted with surrounding darkness which threatens to engulf the characters yet never succeeds in putting them out..."

Despite this intimation of an almost mythic literary knowledge on my part, Hamilton remained uninterested.

"Your mind is excellent, but I must trouble you to leave out the details. Anything else?"

"You talk like a book, too" I said rhapsodically, "Well, never mind what. The novel was about ghouls... That is, vampires. Those are creatures who drink blood and live in darkness, because they are afraid of daylight."

"I know what a vampire is. Now I do hope that's all, you witty child." He seemed positively offended — which was reflected in the expression of his physiognomy. "You better not run your mouth. You insult me for the mere pleasure of insulting."

"Insult you?" I shook my head. "Sorry. I didn't mean to insult you, Sir. The vampires tend to have dainty features, you see, and you look nothing like one. Besides, the main character is not a vampire."

It was said more to wound him than anything else, though his nose was actually quite large and conspicuously aquiline. "A regular Roman nose," he used to say, "with my goiter I've quite the countenance of an ancient Roman patrician."

"Don't forget with whom you are talking," said Hamilton. "I can punish you."

"You can, indeed. But how? Will you make me wear a cap? Will you feminize me further?"

Hamilton stood silently. There was something almost frenzied in his eyes as if he was desperately trying to find the right answer.

"I can kill you, do you know that? Not because I've gotten angry or become offended, but–just so, simply kill you, because I have the right..."

I felt as if a hand was griping at my heart within my breast, still, I tried to keep my features as indifferent as possible.

"I know. Well, if such a thought happens to cross your mind, do it quickly. So it doesn't hurt."

"I can't promise anything."

Obviously, none of this talk was productive.
There was a stupid silence that was not broken for fully ten seconds. Hamilton pulled a cigar out of his pocket and bit off the end of it.

"Draw all the curtains and turn the light on. The floors upstairs must be washed... And don't disturb me while I'm at work."

He put his hands in his pockets and made haste to turn away. So I left him standing there alone — surrounded with the clouds of tobacco. As I ascended the stairs, I heard him cough and deliver himself of some sepulchral mucus.

The evening was approaching. I was scrubbing and cleaning and washing the floors and carried out this occupation with such zeal, that dampness soon set upstairs and my fingers began to ache. As the veiled sun made its round around the house, Vella called me to the kitchen for supper. The dark iron of the electric stove gave off a sort of purple glow, while the light cast by a kerosine lamp formed a lively golden circle on the kitchen table. Somewhere outside life was raging like a storm, but here only the slanting rain could be heard tapping at the window. In the glass I caught sight of the reflection of my pale face and of the light of the lamp set against the dawning darkness outside. Vella clasped her hands together and said grace. I followed her example.

"Thank you," I said as I took a tray with food from Theodosia. She turned away without answering. A thigh of a chicken, overcooked. Of course, the meal was rather to invigorate than to satiate. I haven't had any appetite anyway. I was sick to my stomach. But there was no place to put the food, no potted plants, and I wouldn't chance the toilet. Could I leave it on the plate? Would Theodosia take offense? I chewed and swallowed, the cold chicken balling itself together in my sour mouth, a handful of damp cardboard.
Upstairs, in Hamilton's study, there will be candles, a fine glass with cold tea in it, a clink as he sets down his fork, leaving half the contents of his plate untouched. Possibly he will say he has no appetite, thanks to the sedentary life and irregular sleep, and also because he had already managed during the day to send Theodosia to the store for rahat loukoum, dill-pickles and molasses candy, and had through this spoiled his appetite. Rewrite.

Unlike me, Vella ate for two, and in addition washed the chicken down with milk. The inordinate, provident appetite of a child has not yet disappeared in her. I put the chicken aside and wiped my lips with a napkin. Thankfully, Theodosia was fussing over the stove and paid no attention to that.

"Why aren't you eating?" asked Vella, and uttered an unbothered "excuse me" when her slight burp interrupted my answer.

"I'm not really hungry..."

"But you haven't eaten anything today!"

"Really, not hungry. Thank you."

For the next three minutes, I sat quietly and from time to time let my head drop into my hands dejectedly. Soon enough my allowance was gone, and I told her everything about my recent intercourse with Hamilton. She listened with anything but incredulity.

"It shouldn't surprise you," she said shrilly. "He was probably kidding you. And if he really is all that bad, the worst thing you could do would be to show him that you believe that he is being for-real."

"How can one make jokes about murder? Besides, it didn't seem like a joke to me: the expression is put in very significantly and plainly, and there was besides a threat that he will kill me. Well, what do you think? Would you not be alarmed?

"No," answered Vella, with more animation. "I saw clearly that it was too plainly expressed, and that perhaps His Excellency meant something different. He's very swell. He wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Excuse me, but really this is some bullshit."

"Gee, that's a very vulgar expression. I don't wanna argue with you."

"Are you so completely certain?"

"I am."

We were silent for a minute.

"He used to be so nice," she said in a small voice. "So very nice. Long ago—when I first started living here. If you had known him then. He'd come to stay with us for hours. Sometimes he'd let me play—he'd let me play a muted piano—Ms. Batrow, do you remember?"

"What did this to him? I asked. "Why does he have to be so coarse?"

Vella shook her head right and left, disclaiming responsibility for the matter. My senses were very slightly stirred but I decided to give it a try.

"Could it be that he went through a divorce?"

"What?" countered Vella, her features working.

"He strikes me as being a divorcee. Was he married?"

"No, he was not."

"Perhaps he has children?"

"No. Why?"

"He is an unhappy man, I can see that. So many smart men go to pieces nowadays because of women—"

"Oh, it's not that."

"Why isn't he married, then?" I asked stubbornly. "How old is he?"

"Thirty-eight. Let's drop it out of the picture, Mr. Keyle."

"A fine age for a bachelor."

I didn't have the time to press on: the cow-like Theodosia stepped back from the stove and put a plate on the table.

"And now we all think Vella ought to bring the food upstairs."

Vella pushed her plate of chicken away, knocking her glass of milk over, and, grabbing Hamilton's supper, bounced out of the room. I remained staring at the rippling white puddle left on the table.

"Did I say something wrong?"

Theodosia shrugged, excused herself, and left the kitchen. I was not able, alas, to hold my supper, and dashed towards the sink.

The stove door was long since closed; as I was heading towards the quarters, I noticed the light shining dully for a while in Hamilton's window, then going out. Everything vanished. To the persistent rain was added the impenetrable dark of the night, and a black veil shut me off from earth and sky.

Others were already sound asleep as I paced up and down and the floor creaked under my feet; the room was warmed by a furnace and I could hear a mouse gnawing busily away. I sat for a long hour on the floor, beside an ashtray bristling with cigarette ends, studying the last six month's worth of weekly newspapers. The names of people passed before me in their hundreds, but there didn't seem to be any entries about Hamilton or his private life. I also examined some articles written about me, and to my relief found all of them to be lacking pictures. One has to be a cone artist and a madman, a creature of infinite talent in order to conceal at once the distinctive features of one's face— for example, the round outline of a cheekbone, a fat upper lip, a chestnut head of curly hair, a freckled forehead , and other indices which without a doubt would have given me away (but I do hope that this book will be illustrated with good photographs when it does get printed, although it is not very likely that any public library will harbor such provocative works).

"This means," I said in the dark to myself and to the mouse that was nibbling the cigarette butts on the floor, This means that these people here have no conception of my face. Splendid. And is that all? No, that's not all! They'll know me once the latest paper arrives. And then what will I do?
My eyes fell on a comparatively recent section (April) Who's Who in the Limelight —actors, politicians, factory owners. In looking through the latest issue, I was treated to a lucky coincidence that any logician would loathe. I transcribe most of the page:
"Penrose, James. Actor. Born in Lundy, Mass., 1896. Studied acting in Oxford. Broadway debut – 1919."
"Hamilton, Alexander. Lawyer, Private secretary (Thomas Crawford, read in issue 18-7 ) Born in East Northport, N.Y., 1883. Educated at Princeton University. Started as a public defender but turned to judicial consultation and personal financing.
Hobbies: fast cars, snuff boxes, pets."

Roughly, during that mad first week (September 2nd to september 9th), all my days would begin with a series of wiggles and whorls in the kitchen. Immediately after Vella Smith had become more or less my friend, she interviewed me extensively about my relations with God. I said, paying my tribute to a pious platitude—that I come from a good Protestant family. Looking down at her fingernails, Vella also would ask me had I not strained my back cleaning. I simply can't tell you how gentle, how touching the child was. At breakfast, in the depressingly bright kitchen, she would sit, her elbow on the fake mahogany table, her cheek propped on her fist, and stare at me with tenderness as I consumed my oatmeal. She knew nothing of my misdeeds, unlike Theodosia Batrow. Theodosia simply hated me. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

A whole week had passed, and the situation had begun to grow more complicated. I may mention in passing that I suffered a great deal during that unhappy week, as I worked constantly with an iron weight of women's clothing upon my shoulders. I was so morbidly apprehensive that I expected that America knew about my shameful position by now. Soon I found that other men knew all about me and expressed an intense repulsion towards me, even hatred. I knew not what to do. What saved me was that Lee, our sweet informant, swore once he had seen a photograph of Steven Keyle before, and that "that guy was as white as a ghost." This image they all had of me, reduced to the only concrete source that torpid memory could give it, may have spared me a bloody nose.

A week passed and I still knew nothing of Hamilton, except for what I already knew: that Thomas Jefferson himself was his immediate supervisor. We did not talk much, only briefly and to the point. I was a reproach to him, and a necessity. Each time on being actually spoken to I felt my habitual irritable and uneasy aversion for his face. There was something at once chilling and off-putting in the sudden distance that crept between us in the most unexpected moments. It was almost as though he were doing it on purpose: one day, while I was polishing the floors upstairs, I felt his gaze right away. He had been staring at me while I was on my hands and knees, and when I raised my face to ask what on earth did I do wrong, there it was: cunning, cruel, like a glistening blade instantly retracted the moment its victim caught sight of it. He must have noticed I was rather annoyed and in an effort to make it up to me tried to strike up a conversation:

"That's not the way to do it."

I was too much on my guard to answer him with candor.

"What am I supposed to do, then?"

"I've never seen such work. Look at your fingers... Don't scrub the floor so roughly. At this rate you're going to have holes in your hands. "

"I might already have some. My hands feel horrid."

"I make bold to inquire—have you been in the service?"

I raised my head. He stood facing me at the other end of the corridor, which was five paces away and waited for the answer with a look of unwonted radiance on his face.

"No, I have not happened to. What does that have to do with cleaning?"

"Well, I have," Hamilton signed as his mind became filled with memories. "I graduated from the university in 1913, and participated in the Great War a little later."

"Did you kill people?"

I could not help imagining him in uniform, with a weapon. Once in school they showed us photographs which came straight from the Western Front. I don't remember much about it, but I remember the quality of the pictures, the way everything in them seemed to be coated with a mixture of sunlight and dust, and how dark the shadows were under people's eyebrows and along their cheekbones. Hamilton certainly had a fitting look.

"Might have. I was in the Ninth Machine-Gun Battalion."

"Is that something much?"

"Quite. But I was soon relocated to the headquarters as a telegraphist. I swept a great deal of floors while I was there. I guess I was already too valuable, too much of a capital investment to have my nose be shot off in a gun."

He smiled sadly at his own words. I dropped my eyes. He gave this up and puffed at a dead cigarette. I now imagined him on all fours, diligently crawling about the well-swept floors of a dimly lit set of rooms.

"I never got my majority. That's what makes me so sore." he said. "You don't like me, but that can't be helped. I'm primarily a literary man, and you are not."

He made a vague discouraged sound and shook his head helplessly.

"What on earth is that supposed to mean?"

"Do you read?"

"I've got an unfinished minor in comparative literature," I said proudly.

"What's your favorite genre?"

"Political philosophy," I lied.

"Have you got a favorite piece?"

"Das Kapital."

"Are you a Communist?"

"I'm a Socialist. It seems to me it is more heroic to fight on the just side."

"How do you find out which it is?" asked Hamilton dryly.

"Why—usually everybody intelligent knows."

"It's student's talk. I fought against the Germans because I am an American, and I shall fight the Socialists because they want to take my property from me."

I threw the rag into the bucket angrily.

"I'd rather your property be taken away. Because I am your property."

"Perhaps when the magnificent Utopia of the socialists will materialize, when man will be absolutely free and subject only to his desires, perhaps it may be then that you will earn your pathetic little freedom. Let men like you beat, deceive, let them thieve, mock, spill blood... Shall we look on, then, with our little hands folded? Tolerate crime as an unavoidable evil?

"Crime is unavoidable. But isn't it all the same to you, anyway?" I asked with cold wonder. "You're a theorist. According to you, all crime is punishable by slavery."

"Well, yes, I am a theorist, because my reason, when I think of life, always leads me logically to the theorist beginning. And when I look and look upon the Russians, with their new Socialist revolution, I am thrown into hysterics.

"Oh, are you?"

"You are a noble. Socialists do not like nobles, above all those who have been condemned for political offenses. They don't need you, you don't suit them. Tell me what sympathy can they have for you? The life of a convict here is hard, but it is nothing in comparison with that of the disciplinary companies in socialist Russia. There it is hell. They'd shave your head and send you to Siberia for what you did."

I leapt up with a rustle of my skirt against the flesh of my thighs. Two words from him, and I saw my pouting apathy change into anger, a desire to scrub the floor until it was time for lunch, until the skin on my fingers would wear off layer after layer, just to annoy him. Hamilton kept his eyes, clouded-glass empty and slightly bloodshot, fixed upon me, and I saw the stealthy thought showing through them that perhaps after all he was right, perhaps he could kill me at this very moment without getting penalized himself.
"I'd rather they'd send me to Siberia or god knows where else," I said through gritted teeth. "I'd rather be dead."

For a moment I entertained a desperate idea of telling him that I was no noble, and how I hated the big houses I used to live in, that really I wasn't a valuable property—for a moment I turned into my mother, Eleanor, the good peasant housewife. But I survived the temptation. Hamilton was silent, and kept staring in between my eyes as if I were a corpse. I guessed, if I took a step forward, if I decided to strike– too late. The house was suddenly vibrating with voluble Theodosia's voice telling everyone to come for lunch.
Hamilton cleared his throat.

"Juvenile delinquent."

He retreated to his office.

Well, I had better do as I was told. I went to the kitchen, where Missus Batrow sat at the table, shelling peas. I sat down and drew a bowl of broth nearer to myself. I was starving.

"The men will kill you if they find out what you are."

I looked up from my interrupted soup.

"Excuse me?"

Theodosia had by then transferred herself to a stool opposite from mine.

"Ain't like you're His Excellency's secret. You're all over the news. Your face".

I went cold.

"Will they know?"

"No–and you're lucky I'm the one who deals with the garbage," she said. "I told them that I have accidentally burned the issue. Damn Belcher had no business complaining, but since he did—I told him I'd burn all October issues if he opened his mouth about it again. You might as well thank me."

She was the informant, then. What did she get out of it, this role of a page-woman? I signed in relief. The latest issue of New York Times would have certainly landed me back in prison, had not the kitchen devil realized that I was to be granted some relief if Hamilton wanted
to have me as a plaything for some time longer.

"Thank you," I responded carefully. "It's a dangerous undertaking."

"I like to treat everyone fairly, is all," Theodosia said, returning to her peas. "Even you."

I was going to thank her again.

"Although you are a monster. A detestable, abominable, criminal fraud.'

Before I had the time to recover from a mild heart attack provided by her words, or at least its possibility, someone had entered the house. I could hear it: the distant closing of a door, around at the side, footsteps in the corridor.

"Blessed it be the day!" Vella exclaimed, bursting into the room. Her cap was on backwards.

"Please excuse me, I looked outdoors for a minute. There must be a bird in the bushes. It's singing away..."

"I suppose it was a nightingale," I said, glancing sideways at Theodosia. "I heard it this morning."

Vella gave me a radiant smile of delight.

"Yes, probably a nightingale."

After lunch I found myself utterly wretched. My right cleaning hand was in a terrible condition, so much so that I stood in the middle of the hall bemused and motionless, staring at the rash that formed on it. The skin was hard and wrinkled, like the skin of a dead apple. I vainly tried to grasp the water bucket, but in the end spat on the newly polished parquet in disgust. My ravaged fingers were incapable of gripping anything.

My aching right hand clutched the muffled washcloth in my dress pocket, as my healthy left knocked on the door of Hamilton's office.

"Mr. Hamilton?"

No answer. I knocked again.

"Mr. Hamilton, may I come in? My hands hurt. I need a lotion... Or an ointment, or something. Please?"

On mature reflection I didn't need no ointment or lotion, or anything else for that matter. It would be shameful to worry about my health and to prolong my life a minute more. Certainly not a life like this. I simply wanted to disturb him while he was "at work" – the agony of not seeing him angry was growing unbearable. I wanted to scream, to bang on his door, to rub my bleeding hands against the floor until there were holes in them, to mutilate myself, even, so as to let him know how much his mere existence had come to bother me. I wanted him to grow annoyed and simply kill me, as he, the master, His excellency, had the right to do so. If my person was property I could exercise whatever advantage was inherent in its ownership.

But he wasn't there. Upon noticing that the door was not locked, I opened it a tiny crack and peered inside. The room was empty. I gave a sudden start; another thought that I had had before slipped back into my mind. I knew, I had felt beforehand, that this thought must come back, I was expecting it; besides it was not only today's thought. The difference was that a week ago, yesterday even, it was a mere dream: but now... now it appeared not a dream at all.

I shifted uneasily and began fumbling with the doorknob.

I had been thinking about escaping for a long time now, morbidly reckoning the chances at one moment with hope and at the next with despair. A faint and even pleasant shiver ran down my spine. All I needed was the money and a change of clothes.

Yielding myself to an impulse, I slipped into the room. It was lofty, carpeted with rugs, and contained somewhat heavy old-fashioned furniture. The daylight from half-opened blinds softly and sadly splashed against the green walls, over the candelabra, over the soft red leather divan which occupied almost the whole of a wall. Arms akimbo, I stood for a moment quite still and self-composed, surveying from the threshold a wide desk with its open drawer, a lamp, an expensive-looking typewriter, a telephone, and a humidor with two stale dry cigars inside. The stagnant, motionless air still retained a smell of tobacco, and something else sour. For a while I wandered about the room, reconstructing Hamilton from the trash of his desk, from his books and the books on the walls; from a small printed placard with his name, framed and behind glass, half covered by a portiere, hanging from the door. As if he wasn't the only person who could own a study in this house.

So soon as I began to pull open the drawers, searching for money, so soon as I heard their jingling, a convulsive shudder passed over me. I suddenly felt tempted again to give it all up and go away. But that was only for an instant; it was too late to go back. Consequently, for at least five minutes I went about—lucidly insane, crazily calm—turning open whatever cabinets and pocketing coins with my free healthy hand.

In the cabinets there turned out to be various useless papers, a broken watch, a silver pin, as well as a jar with some unknown pills. On the shelf above the divan I found nothing but books. The desk drawer was also empty.

I admitted my defeat and made haste to go, but here a shock of terror awaited me such as I had not felt for a long time: the telephone started to ring. I came to a sudden halt; it seemed to me all at once that I was turned to stone, that it was like a dream in which one is being pursued, and is rooted to the spot and can't even move one's arms.

I rushed into the entry. A poignant chaos was swelling within me—but I was forced to hurriedly double my composure, as I became aware of the exceedingly rapid footsteps coming from the staircase.

And if at that moment I had been capable of seeing and reasoning more correctly, if I had been able to realize all the difficulties of my position, it is very possible that I would have flung up everything, and would have gone to give myself up at once. But instead I rushed to the sofa, hid behind its back and went still as death.

The door creaked open, and Hamilton finally admitted to the formidably loud telephone that may have been ringing for ages, as far as I was concerned.

"Hamilton is talking."

I sat squatting on my heels behind the sofa and waited holding my breath. Sometimes I could hear a distant voice of whoever was on the other end, accompanied by scufflings and droppings of the receiver.

"Hello."

"Well, hello."

"How are [you] doing?"

"Well. I am surprised that it took you a whole week to call me."

Silence continued for some few moments.

"Thomas, do you want me to put him on the wire or something? I swear it's him. Quite a pest."

The person on the other end began to respond, but Hamilton cut in, beating it all down with an overtone of earth-bound annoyance.

"Listen, I've launched out to Carolina on the last day, as you told me to. There can be no mistake—hello, can you hear me—well, look, if anybody comes there—" Once again the receiver was a chorus of innumerable melodies.

"Why on earth are you back in New York?" Hamilton demanded.

Silence.

"Did you get off alright? For God's sake, wait a minute and I'll put him on the wire. All right, then. Of course I will. See you tomorrow. Au Revoir."

Hamilton had rang off at this point. There was the crunch of leather chair and the click of a lighter. Something new was beginning, quite unlike the previous silence, something very strange too.

"You may come out now."