— There, Otto said, holding out an empty hand which he let fall slowly. — I'm sorry about… I can. . She waited, with this same unachieved smile. — Are you all right?… he repeated, noticing the great hoops of earrings for themselves for the first time. Until that moment they simply served to complete her figure.
— She must go for a long walk, for today she has had nothing to eat, she said to Otto, — and the doctor put barium sul-phate in her stomach so that he can X-ray her and find out if she has a stomach. Isn't that silly? she added after a pause.
— Yes, but you… I mean I heard that you. . that something happened to you last night. .
— Last night, she repeated, looking away from him, — last night she did a very foolish thing, turning on the gas. . She swung round to him suddenly, her tone mocking laughter and her eyes bright open: he looked from one to the other, saw in both his own distended reflection. — Turning on the gas, when the bill was so high already. .! And she allowed him a moment longer to stare at the image on the surface of her eyes, before she turned away to say, — But then Chaby came and everything was all right.
Otto rubbed his hand over his face and muttered something without turning round to Chaby (where she looked then, over his shoulder) who was seated smoking a cigarette in the room behind him.
— Oh yes… he said and took a step away from her, dropping his hand, looking down to where the rug painted on the floor came to an end between them.
She went over to a drawer, looking for something, a handkerchief, and left him standing there looking round, but keeping his eyes from the room behind him. — I see you've finally got a mirror up, he said, rather distastefully, glancing into it to see his face shorn off at the jaw. When she said nothing he added, — You must need it, to get all that paint on your face.
— Oh no, the paint is not for the mirror, she said looking at him, half turned from the opened drawer and clinging to it. — But now a ghost lives here who is not happy. And when it comes she hides in front of the mirror where it cannot find her.
Otto muttered — Oh. ., glanced in at the other room, and took a cigarette out. He lit it and tapped his foot on the floor, looking for a place to throw the match. — What's this? he said suddenly, over near the bookcase, turning a drawing round with his toe on the floor where he'd found it. — Why. . who is this? he asked, and stooped over to pick it up and look at it close.
— Some one, she said.
— But where did you. . how do you know him?
— It is just some one, she said.
— But it's. . what's wrong with this? He stared at the face: it stared back, exactly like, but exactly unlike he remembered, faithfully precise but every honest line translated into its perfect lie, as a face seen from behind.
— It's a funny joke, she said suddenly, speaking more loudly, and she laughed but the laugh was gone by the time he looked up to her face.
— No, it isn't funny, he said, looking back at the picture. He started to hold it up before the mirror out of curiosity, and then abruptly he threw it down and turned to her. — Can you come out for a walk?
— She must go for a long walk with the chem-ical in her no-stomach, she said. She was pulling on gloves.
As they went out, she stopped in the door. — You will be here? she asked Chaby. Chaby nodded.
— But you will!. . she said with a desperate step toward him.
— Sure, I'll be here, Chaby said from the chair, and he winked at her and smiled, hardly raising the ends of his hair-line mustache.
At that she lost her rigidity, and wilted against the edge of the open door, smiling at him.
Otto waited at the stairhead. As they went out he tossed an end of the green scarf over his shoulder and spoke as casually as he could, — Where'd you get those earrings, anyhow?
— She has always had them.
— I never saw them on you. I didn't even know your ears were pierced. She said nothing. — Don't they hurt? I mean, they're so big.
— Yes, she answered turning away, — they hurt her.
Otto thought of taking her arm, but he did not, yet. Also he was walking on her right, and could do no better than bump her with his slung elbow. He was thinking about the picture he had found, and left, on her floor; was, in fact, intensely curious about it, but put it off, as he was putting off taking her arm until they should be well away from her door (as though once into territory strange to her, she would be at the mercy of his protection): all this, though the self-portrait hung square before his eyes, as he said to her, — I have to meet my father in a little while, in an hour or so. When she did not comment, he added, — For the first time.
— That will be nice, she said.
— I don't know how nice it'll be, he said. — Imagine, being my age and meeting the old man for the first time. He paused as they turned the corner and sorted themselves out from strangers walking there. — Put off the old man, says the Bible, put on…
Suddenly she took his arm, his whole slung arm in hers. — Do you know?. . she said.
— What?. . He tried to reach his hand out the end of the sling, and snare her gloved hand, but he could not find it.
— I have discovered that there is no one, she said, in intimate confidence.
— No one?
— Last night there was a knock upon the door. I went and opened the door, and no one was there. No one was really there at my door. No one had come to call.
Otto mumbled and looked at her quickly, at the blue hollows of her eyes in the light of the street. — And. . did no one come in? he managed to say, reaching across with his right hand to find hers.
— No, she said, and let him go as abruptly as she had caught him.
— Now look, you know. . you mustn't get. . you mustn't be too upset, you know, I mean after what happened…
— Do you know what happened too? she asked, looking up at him quite surprised.
Otto looked at her excitedly. It is true, he was confused; but she was with him, they were together after what seemed a very long time, and — All this… he said, — All this. .
— He made love to her, and then she went away.
— What did you say?…
— Love that smelled like lilies of the Madon-na, she went on, her voice rising evenly to a plane of wonder and distance. — Yes, she said intently; then her voice dropped. — Like the pus of Saint John of the Cross.
He had started to get round and get hold of her, but she held him where he was with a look of infinite reproach.
— That smelled of Madon-na lilies, she said in this low tone, a tone of infinite regret.
— Now look, you… he who?. . Otto burst round to the other side of her, started to take her arm and realized that she was still carrying Uncle Tom's Cabin. His mind churned a vast array of irrelevancies, from the faces passing them which turned here and there in dull curiosity to that incunabular joke which said that Uncle Tom's Cabin was not written by hand because it was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe…
— He in the mir-ror, — who, she said in her mocking tone.
— Now look, that photograph, and his. . look, what is it?… Have you been modeling?. . for him?
— Sometimes she did.
— But where is… but where are the pictures?
— He did not show them to her. Her voice was brisk with disappointment. They were passing outside a bar whose door just then came'open and poured out a heavy broken stream of German music which was gone with their next step, leaving her face in the blue and red lights of the window sign for beer, exposed in the expression of fear he first remembered on it when he had gone down on her in the chair in the afternoon and something, somewhere, broke: but in this instantaneous conspiracy of lights and make-up that immaculate fear became terror, and jaded terror sustained beyond human years and endurance, and he shuddered at this hag before he knew it.