Alfons did not say much when I entered.
He gave me a short glance and went on reading his paper.
I sat down at a table and dozed.
There was no one else there.
I thought of Pat.
Always of Pat.
I thought of how I had behaved.
Suddenly every detail came back to me. Everything turned against me.
I alone was to blame.
I had been mad.
I stared at the table.
The blood raged in my head.
I was bitter and furious with myself and at my wits' end.
It was I, I alone, that had ruined everything.
There was a sudden crash and tinkle of broken glass.
With .the whole weight of my fist I had smashed my glass to smithereens.
"One form of amusement," said Alfons, getting up.
He pulled the splinters out of my hand.
"Sorry," said I; "forgot where I was for the moment."
He fetched cotton wool and sticking plaster.
"Go to a whore shop," said he, "that's better."
"It's all right," I replied. "It's over now.
Only an attack of anger." >
"You must amuse anger away, not annoy it away," declared Alfons.
"True," said I, "but you have to be able to."
"All training.
You all want to run your heads through the wall.
But it passes with the years."
He put the Miserere from Il Trovatore on the gramophone.
It was getting rapidly lighter.
I went home.
Alfons had given me a large glass of Fernet-Branca to drink.
I now felt soft axes chopping over my eyes.
The street was no longer flat.
My shoulders were heavy as lead.
I was finished.
Slowly I climbed the stairs and was searching my pocket for the key.
Then in the semidarkness I heard someone breathing—something pale, indistinct, squatting on the upper steps.
I took three strides.
"Pat—" said I uncomprehendingly. "Pat—what are you doing here?"
She moved.
"I believe I've been asleep."
"Yes, but how did you get here?"
"Well, I have your house key—"
"I don't mean that.
I mean—" The drunkenness receded, I saw the worn treads of the stairs,_the peeling wallpaper and the silver dress, the narrow, shining shoes.-"I mean, that you are here at all—"
"I've been asking myself that a long time."
She stood up and stretched as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be sitting on the stairs in the early hours of the morning.
Then she sniffed..
"Lenz would say— cognac, rum, cherry, absinth—"