“But he is a child. Yes! That is why he does not notice that you … that it is only in order. … That all this is only a foul game! Yes! And it is my duty. …”
For a second (in the mirror) the broken, trembling line of brows. I leaped, controlling with difficulty the other self within me, the one with the hairy fists; with difficulty, pushing every word through my teeth, I cried straight into her face, into her very gills:
“Get out of here at once! Out! At once!”
The gills swelled at first into brick-red lumps, then fell and became gray. She opened her mouth to say something but without a word she slammed it shut and went out.
I threw myself towards I-330 .
“Never, never will I forgive myself! She dared! You … but you don’t think, do you, that you, that she. … This is all because she wants to register on me but I. …”
“Fortunately she will not have time for that now. Besides, even a thousand like her. … I don’t care. … I know you will not believe that thousand but only me. For after all that happened yesterday, I am all yours, all, to the very end, as you wanted it. I am in your hands; you can now at any moment. …”
“What, ‘at any moment?’ ” (But at once I understood what. My blood rushed to my ears and cheeks.) “Don’t speak about that, you must never speak about that! The other I, my former self … but now. …”
“How do I know? Man is like a novel: up to the last page one does not know what the end will be. It would not be worth reading otherwise.”
She was stroking my head. I could not see her face but I could tell by her voice that she was looking somewhere very far into the distance; she