"Well, the storeroom will do," he said. "The storeroom, the laundry, the isolation ward. I've only got six more hours to sleep. Or maybe you can fix me up in your place..."
The warden began rushing about the room. He ran between the bunks, barefoot, white, and terrible as a specter. Then he stopped and groaned:
"What a business, eh? I'm a civilized man as well, graduate of two colleges, I'm not a savage or anything... I know it all. But it's impossible, get me? It's absolutely out of the question!"
He bounded up to Pepper and whispered in his ear, "Your visa has run out! Twenty-seven minutes ago it ran out and you're still here. You mustn't be here. I beg you..." He collapsed onto his knees and drew Pepper's boots and socks out from under the bed. "I woke up at five to twelve covered in sweat," he mumbled. "Well, I thought, this is it. This is the end of me. I ran off just as I was. I don't remember a thing. Clouds over the streets, nails catching my feet - and my wife's expecting! Get dressed, please, get dressed..."
Pepper got dressed in a hurry. He found it hard to think. The warden kept running between the bunks, shuffling across the moonlit squares, now glancing out into the corridor, now looking out of the window, whispering, "Good lord, what a business."
"Can I at least leave my suitcase with you?" inquired Pepper.
The warden clacked his teeth.
"Not at any price! You'll be the ruin of me... You might have some sympathy... Good lord, good lord..."
Pepper gathered his books together, closing his case with difficulty, and picked up his raincoat. "Where shall I go now?" he asked.
The warden was mute. He waited fidgeting with impatience. Pepper hefted his suitcase and went off down the dark and silent staircase to the street. He paused on the verandah and while attempting to control his shivering, spent some time listening to the warden instructing the somnolent duty clerk: "He'll ask for readmittance. Don't let him in! He's got ... [inaudible sinister whisper] Got it! You're responsible..." Pepper sat down on his suitcase and placed his raincoat across his knees.
"I'm afraid not, sorry," said the warden behind him. "I must ask you to leave the verandah. I must ask you to vacate the hotel premises completely."
He had to go down and put his case on the roadway. The warden stamped around, muttering: "I must ask you... My wife ... and no fuss... Consequences ... can't be done..." and left, white underwear gleaming, stealing along the fence. Pepper glanced at the dark windows of the cottages, the dark windows of the Directorate, the dark windows of the hotel. There was no light anywhere, even the street lighting was off. There was only the moon, round, brilliant, and somehow malevolent.
He suddenly realized he was alone. He had nobody. All around people were asleep and they all like me, I know that, I've seen it many times. Yet I'm alone, just as if they'd suddenly died or become enemies ... and the warden - kind, ugly man, a martyr to Basedow's disease, a loser who latched on to me the very first day. We played the piano together, four hands, and argued. I was the only one he dared to argue with and next to whom he felt himself a real person, not just the father of seven children. And Kim. He had returned from the chancellery and brought a huge document case with him, full of informers reports. Ninety-two denunciations of me, all written in one hand and with different signatures. That I steal official sealing wax at the post office, that I brought an underage girl in my suitcase and am now keeping her in the bakery cellar, and much besides... And Kim read these denunciations and threw some into the wastebasket, and kept others to one side, muttering: "I'll have to put some headwork in on that." And that was unexpected and horrible, senseless and repulsive... How he would timidly glance at me and drop his eyes at once.
Pepper rose, gripped his case and wandered off, following his nose. His nose led nowhere. Not that there was anywhere to lead to along these dark empty streets. He kept stumbling, the dust made him sneeze, and he fell a time or two. The suitcase was incredibly heavy and somehow ungovernable. It rubbed its.bulk against his leg then swung out to one side and then, returning from the dark, struck his kneee a tremendous clout. In the park's dark alley where there was no light at all and only the statues, like the warden, glimmered shakily in the gloom, the case got caught up in a thread of his trouser-leg and Pepper abandoned it in despair. The hour of despair had arrived. Weeping and blind with tears, Pepper struggled through dry, dusty, spiky hedges, rolled down steps, fell, painfully striking his back, and finally drained of strength and gasping with exasperation and self-pity, went down on his knees at the edge of the cliff.
The forest, however, remained indifferent. So indifferent that it was invisible. Below the edge was inky blackness. Only on the far horizon something layered, gray, and formless lazily reflected the rays of the moon.
"Wake up," asked Pepper. "Look at me just this once, while we're alone, don't worry, they're all asleep. Surely you need at least one of us? Or don't you understand what a need is? It's when you can't do without ... when you think all the time about ... when all your life you've been striving toward... I don't know what you are. Nor do those who are dead sure they know. You are what you are, but I can hope that you're what I've wanted to see all my life: kind, intelligent, indulgent, and considerate, perhaps even grateful. We've dissipated all that, we've no energy or time for it, all we do is construct historical monuments, ever higher, ever cheaper, but consideration is something we can't manage. But you're different, because from a long way off I came to you, not believing you actually existed. So you really don't need me? No, I won't lie. I'm afraid I don't need you either. We've caught sight of each other, but came no closer. It shouldn't have been that way. Perhaps they stand between us? There are plenty of them and only one of me, but I'm - one of them, you, probably can't pick me out in the crowd, maybe it isn't worth the trouble.
Maybe I invented those human characteristics that would appeal to you myself, to you that is, not as you are, but as I had imagined you to be...
Suddenly from beyond the horizon, bright white puffs of light slowly swam up and hung, dissipating and at once to the right under the cliff, under the overhanging rocks, searchlight beams began hunting wildly, haring about the sky and encountering massed banks of fog. The light balls above the horizon continued to thin out and disperse and turned into silvery clouds before extinguishing. A minute later the searchlights went out.
"They're afraid," said Pepper. "I am too. I'm afraid for myself but I'm afraid for you as well. You don't know them after all, yet. Even I don't know them at all well. All I know is they're capable of any extreme, the furthest extremes of stupidity and wisdom, cruelty and pity, fury and restraint. There's only one thing they lack - understanding. They always substituted some sort of surrogate for understanding, be it faith, disbelief, indifference, or neglect. That always turned out to be the simplest way. Easier to believe than comprehend. Easier to become disenchanted than to comprehend. I'm leaving tomorrow, by the way, not that that matters. I can't help you here, here everything's too solid and well-established. I'm just too obviously superfluous here, alien. I'll find the pressure point though, don't worry. It's true they can ruin you irretrievably, but that needs time and plenty of it. They've yet to find the most effective, economic, and above all, cheap method of approach. We'll keep up the struggle, it will have been worth it... Good-bye."
Pepper got up from his knees and wandered back by way of the bushes, the park, the alley. He tried without success to locate his suitcase. After that he got back to the main street, empty and illuminated only by the moon. It was already after one when he halted outside the Directorate library, it was open invitingly. The windows were hung with heavy curtains but inside it was brightly lit, like a dance hall. The parquet floor had dried out and squeaked desperately; all around were books. The shelves groaned under the weight of books, books lay in heaps on tables and in corners, and apart from Pepper and the books there wasn't a soul in the library.