“Here!” I noticed at the feet of the old woman a bush of silver—bitter wormwood. (The court of the Ancient House, being a part of the museum is carefully kept in its prehistoric state.) A branch of the bush touched the old woman, she caressed that branch; upon her knees lay stripes of sunshine. For a second I myself, the sun, the old woman, the wormwood, those yellow eyes, all seemed to be one; we were firmly united by common veins and one common blood, boisterous, magnificent blood, was running through those veins.
I am ashamed now to write down all this, but I promised to be frank to the end of these records: yes, I bent over and kissed that soft, grown-together mouth of the old woman. She wiped it with her hand and laughed.
Running, I passed through familiar, half-dark, echoing rooms, and for some reason I ran straight to the bedroom. When I had reached the door, a thought flashed: “And if she is there … not alone?” I stopped and listened. But all I heard was the tick-tock of my heart, not within me, but somewhere near, outside me.
I entered. The large bed—untouched. A mirror … another mirror in the door of the cupboard, and in the keyhole an ancient key upon an ancient ring. No one was there. I called softly: “ I-330 , are you here?”—and then in a still lower voice with closed eyes, holding my breath—in a voice as though I were kneeling before her, “ I- , dear.” Silence. Only the water was dripping fast into the white basin of the washstand. I cannot now explain why, but I disliked that sound. I turned the faucet hard and went out. She was not there, so much was clear. She must be in another “apartment.”
I ran down a wide, sombre stairway, pulled one door, another, a third—locked. Every room was locked save that of “our” apartment. And she was not there. I went back again to the same apartment without knowing