Then her eyes opened widely and with delight I looked at her and saw that her face grew quickly paler and paler, that it effaced itself, disappearing—only the eyes remained.
I told her everything. Only for some reason, what I don’t know—(no, it is not true, I know the reason) I was silent about one thing: His assertion at the end that they needed me only in order. …
Like the image on a photographic plate in a developing fluid, her face gradually reappeared; the cheeks, the white line of teeth, the lips. She stood up and went to the mirror-door of the closet. My mouth was dry again. I poured water but it was revolting to drink it; I put the glass back on the table and asked:
“Did you come to see me because you wanted to inquire … ?”
A sharp, mocking triangle of brows drawn to the temples looked at me from the mirror. She turned around to say something but said nothing.
It was not necessary; I knew.
To bid her goodbye, I moved my foreign limbs, struck the chair with them. It fell upside down, dead, like the table in her room. Her lips were cold … just as cold was once the floor, here, near my bed. …
When she left I sat down on the floor, bent over the cigarette-butt. …
I cannot write any more—I no longer want to!