And cheerfully (yes cheerfully) she nodded to me; the other came out for a second from under his forehead’s awning and nodded also. I was alone.
Quick! To my desk! I opened this manuscript, took the pen so that they should find me at this work which is for the benefit of the United State. Suddenly I felt every hair on my head living, separated, moving: “What if they should read, even one page of these most recently written?”
Motionless I sat at the table but everything around me seemed to be moving, as if the less than microscopic movements of the atoms suddenly were magnified millions of times, and I saw the walls trembling, my pen trembling and the letters swinging and fusing together. “To hide them! But where?” Glass all around. “To burn them?” But they would notice the fire through the corridor and in the neighboring room. Besides I felt unable, I felt too weak, to destroy this torturing and perhaps dearest piece of my own self. …
Voices from a distance (from the corridor) and steps. I had only time to snatch a handful of pages and put them under me, and then as if soldered to the armchair, every atom of which was quivering, I remained sitting, while the floor under my feet rolled like the deck of a ship, up and down. …
All shrunk together and hidden under the awning of my own forehead like that messenger, I watched them stealthily; they were going from room to room, beginning at the right end of the corridor. Nearer … nearer. … I saw that some sat in their rooms, torpid like me; others would jump up and open their doors wide—lucky ones! If only I too, could. …
“The Well-Doer is the most perfect fumigation humanity needs, consequently no peristalsis in the organism of the United State could. …” I was writing this nonsense, pressing my trembling pen hard, and lower and lower my head bent over the table, and within me some sort of crazy forge. … With my back I was listening … and I heard the click of the doorknob. … A current of fresh air. …