He is very sound.
I've given him all details."
He handed me the letters.
I took them, but did not put them in my pocket.
He looked at me, then he passed in front of me and placed a hand on my arm.
It was light as a bird's wing; I hardly felt it at all.
"Difficult," said he softly, in a changed tone. "I know it. That's why I have delayed as long as I could."
"It is not difficult—" I replied.
He made a gesture.
"Don't tell me—"
"No," said I, "I didn't mean that. I'd only like to know: will she come back?"
Jaffe was silent a moment.
His dark, narrow eyes gleamed in the sad, yellow light.
"What do you want to know that for now?" he asked after a while.
"Because otherwise it would be better she shouldn't go," said I.
He looked up at me swiftly.
"What did you say?"
"Otherwise it would be better she should stay here."
He stared at me.
"Do you know what that would almost certainly mean?" he then asked softly and sharply.
"Yes," said I. "It would mean that she would not die alone.
And what that means I know too."
Jaffe lifted his shoulders as if his flesh crept.
Then he walked slowly to the window and looked out into the rain.
When he returned his face was like a mask. He stopped full in front of me.
"How old are you?" he asked. "Thirty," I replied. I did not understand what he was getting at.
"Thirty," he repeated in an emphatic tone as if he were talking to himself and had not understood me at all. "Thirty; my Godl" He walked to his desk and stood there, small and strangely absent, quite forlorn beside the enormous bare desk. "I'll be sixty soon, now," said he, without looking at me; "but I couldn't do that.
I would still try everything; still try, and even though I knew perfectly well it was hopeless."
I said nothing.
Jaffe stood there as if he had forgotten everything around him.
Then he made a movement and his face lost the look.
He smiled.
"I believe definitely she will get through the winter quite well."
"Only the winter?" I asked.
"I hope, then, that in the spring she will be able to come down again."
"Hope," said I. "What does that mean?"
"Everything," replied Jaffe. "Always everything.
I can't tell you more now.
The rest is possibility.
One must wait and see how things go up there.
But I definitely hope she will be able to come back in the spring." '
"Definitely."
"Yes." He walked around the desk and with his foot kicked an open drawer shut so violently that the glasses rattled. "Damn it, man, it goes hard enough with me myself that she must go!" he muttered.
A nurse came in.
Jaffe waved her away.
But she stood nevertheless, dumpy, four-square, with a bulldog face under grey hair.
"Afterwards," growled. Jaffe. "Come again afterwards."
The nurse turned away irritably.
As she went she switched off the electric light.
Grey and milky the day suddenly stood in the room.