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 good-bye, 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!
RECORD THIRTY-NINE
The End
All this was like the last crystal of salt thrown into a saturated
solution; quickly, needle-like crystals began to appear, to grow
more substantial and solid. It was clear to me; the decision was
made and tomorrow morning _I shall do it_! It amounts to suicide
but perhaps then I shall be re-born. For only what is killed can be
re-born.
Every second the sky twitched in convulsion there in the west. My
head was burning and pulsating inside; I was up all night and I fell
asleep only at about seven o'clock in the morning when the darkness
of the night was already dispelled and becoming gray and when the
roofs crowded with birds became visible....
I woke up; ten o'clock. Evidently the bell did not ring today. On
the table--left from yesterday--there stood the glass of water.
I gulped the water down with avidity and I ran; I had to do it
quickly, as quickly as possible.
The sky was deserted, blue, all eaten up by the storm. Sharp corners
of shadows.... Everything seemed to be cut out of blue autumnal
air--thin, dangerous to touch; it seemed so brittle, ready to
disperse into glass dust. Within me something similar; I ought not
to think; it was dangerous to think, for....
And I did not think, perhaps I did not even see properly; I
only registered impressions. There on the pavement, thrown from
somewhere, branches were strewn; their leaves were green, amber and
cherry-red. Above, crossing each other, birds and aeros were tossing
about. Here below heads, open mouths, hands waving branches.... All
this must have been shouting, buzzing, chirping....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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