I do not know how long we were rolled about that way in the underground tube. I only remember that steps were felt, dusk appeared, becoming brighter and brighter, and again we were in the street, dispersing fan-wise in different directions.
Again I was alone. Wind. Gray, low twilight crawling over my head. In the damp glass of the sidewalk, somewhere very deep, there were light topsy-turvy walls and figures moving along, feet upward. And that terribly heavy package in my hands pulled me down into that depth to the bottom.
At the desk again. U- was not yet there; her room was dark and empty. I went up to my room and turned on the light. My temples tightly bound by the iron ring were pulsating. I paced and paced, always in the same circle: my table, the white package on the table, the bed, my table, the white package on the table. … In the room to my left the curtains were lowered. To my right: the knotty bald head over a book, the enormous parabolic forehead. Wrinkles on the forehead like a series of yellow, illegible lines. At times our eyes met and then I felt that those lines were about me.
… It happened at twenty-one o’clock exactly. U- came in on her own initiative. I remember that my breathing was so loud that I could hear it and that I wanted to breathe less noisily but was unable to.
She sat down and arranged the fold of her unif on her knees. The pinkish-brown gills were waving.
“Oh, dear, is it true that you are wounded? I just learned about it, and at once I ran. …”
The piston was before me on the table. I jumped up, breathing even louder. She heard, and stopped halfway through a word and rose. Already I had located the place on her head; something disgustingly sweet was in my mouth. …