She was somewhere behind me, near the closet door. The unif was rustling, falling. I was listening, all listening. I remembered⁠—no, it glistened in my mind for one hundredth of a second⁠—I once had to calculate the curve of a street membrane of a new type. (These membranes are handsomely decorated and are placed on all the avenues, registering all street conversations for the Bureau of Guardians.) I remembered a rosy concave, trembling membrane⁠—a strange being consisting of one organ only, an ear. I was at that moment such a membrane.

Now the “click” of the snap-button at her collar, at her breast, and⁠ ⁠… lower. The glassy silk rustled over her shoulders and knees, over the floor. I heard⁠—and this was clearer than actual seeing⁠—I heard how one foot stepped out of the grayish-blue heap of silk, then the other.⁠ ⁠… Soon I’d hear the creak of the bed and⁠ ⁠…