I considered a moment.
Then I switched on the light. The tube of the passage yawned yellow and hideous.
"Shut your eyes," said I softly to Pat. "It is a sight only for rested nerves."
I picked her up and at my usual stride, as if I were alone, walked slowly past trunks and gas rings to my room.
"Dreadful, eh?" said I sheepishly, staring at the sea of plush that spread itself to greet us.
The brocade armchairs, the carpet, the Hasses' lamp, were gone. "It isn't dreadful at all," said Pat.
"Oh, yes it is," I replied going to the window. "But the view at least is pretty.
Let's pull the armchairs to the window."
Pat walked around the room. '"It's not so bad.
Above all, it's beautifully warm."
"Are you frozen?"
"I like to be warm," said she. "I can't stand cold and rain."
"Good heavens—and we've been sitting out in the mist all this time—"
"Only makes it so much better to be here now."
She stretched, and again with her beautiful walk made the tour of the room.
I was very embarrassed and looked quickly around—thank God, there was not much lying around.
My broken house-slippers I sent with a smart back kick flying under the bed.
Pat stopped in front of the wardrobe and looked up.
On top lay an old trunk which Lenz had given me.
It was plastered all over with coloured labels from his travels.
"Rio de Janeiro," she read; "Manaos—Santiago, Buenos Aires—Las Palmas—"
She pushed the trunk back and came toward me.
"Have you been all over there?"
I mumbled something.
She took my arm,
"Come, tell me about it, tell me about all those cities, it must have been grand, to travel so far—"
And I?
I saw her before me, beautiful, young, expectant, a butterfly that by a happy accident had flown into my down-at-heels, shabby room, into my insignificant, meaningless life, with me and yet not with me—a breath merely, and it might rise and fly away again. . . . Blame me, condemn me; I couldn't, I simply could not say No, could not say that I had never been there; not yet. . . .
We were standing by the window, the mist pressed and broke in waves against the panes—and I felt that behind it lurked again the secret, the hidden, the past things, the damp days of horror, the desolation, the filth, the shreds of a waste life, the perplexity, the misguided frittering away of strength in an aimless existence; but here, before me in the shadow, disconcertingly near, the quiet breathing, the unseizable present—warmth, clear living—I must hold it, I must win it.
"Rio—" said I. "Rio de Janeiro—a harbour out of a fairy tale.
The sea swings in around the bay in seven sweeps and the city mounts white and shining above it. . . ."
I began to tell of the hot cities and endless plains, of the yellow floods of the great rivers, of shimmering islands, of crocodiles, of forests devouring roads, of the cry of the jaguar by night, as the river boat glided through the sultry, vanilla-and-orchid-scented putrefaction of darkness. I had heard it all from Lenz, but now it almost seemed as if it had been I myself, so curiously intermixed were the memory and the desire to lend some glamour to the petty and obscure nothingness of my life, in order not to lose this incredibly lovely face, this sudden hope, this blessed flowering, for which alone I was much too little.
Later I could explain it all, later when I should be more, when everything was more secure—later, but not now.
"Manaos," said I. "Buenos Aires . . ." And each word was a plea and a vow.
Night.
Outside it began to rain.
The drops fell softly and gently. They no longer pattered as they had done a month ago when they encountered only the bare branches of the lime trees—now they rustled lightly down among the young, yielding leaves; they pressed toward them and ran down them, a mystic festival and secret flowing down to the roots, whence they would mount again and themselves become leaves that would again await the coming of the rain in the nights of early spring.
It had become quiet.
The noise of the street was silenced; a solitary street lamp flickered on the sidewalk.
The young leaves of the trees, lighted from below, looked almost white, almost transparent, and the tops of the trees were shimmering, bright sails. . .
"Listen to the rain, Pat—"
"Yes."
She lay beside me.
Her hair stood out dark against the white pillow. Her face appeared very pale below the darkness of the hair.
One shoulder was raised, it gleamed from some light or other like chased bronze, and a narrow strip of light fell on her arm also. "Just look—" said she, and lifted her hands into it too.
"I fancy it comes from the street lamp outside," said I.
She sat up.
Now her face also was in light, it ran over her shoulders and breasts, yellow, like the glow of wax tapers, it changed, melted, flowed together, turned to orange; blue circles flitted through it, and then suddenly a warm red stood behind her like a halo, slid higher and wandered slowly over the ceiling of the room.
"It's the cigarette advertisement across the way," said I.
"See now how beautiful your room is," said she.