34

HIS cuts and bruises healed, his hair grew again, but the terrible sense of this solid black wall remained unchanged. After those paroxysms of deadly horror, when he had howled, flung himself about and tried frantically to tear something away from his eyes, he lapsed into a state of semi-consciousness. Then presently there would loom up once more that unbearable mountain of oppression, which was only comparable with the panic of one who wakes to find himself in his grave.

Gradually, however, these fits became less frequent. For hours on end he lay on his back, silent and motionless, listening to daytime sounds, which seemed to have turned their backs upon him in merry converse with others. Suddenly he would recall that morning at Rouginard—which had really been the beginning of it all—and then he groaned anew. He visualized the sky, blue distances, light and shade, pink houses dotting a bright green slope, lovely dream-landscapes at which he had gazed so little, so little …

While he was still at that hospital, Margot had read aloud to him a letter from Rex which ran as follows:

“I don’t know, my dear Albinus, what staggered me most—the wrong you did me by your inexplicable and very uncivil departure, or the misfortune which has befallen you. But although you have wounded me deeply, I sympathize with you wholeheartedly in your misfortune, especially when I think of your love for painting and for those beauties of color and line which make sight the prince of all our senses.

“I am traveling today from Paris to England and thence to New York, and it will be some time before I see Germany again. Please convey my friendly greetings to your companion, whose fickle and spoiled nature was presumably the cause of your disloyalty toward me. Alas, she is only constant in relation to herself; but, like so many women, she has a craving to be admired by others, which turns to spite when the man in question, by reason of his plain-spokenness, his repulsive exterior and unnatural inclinations, cannot but excite her ridicule and aversion.

“Believe me, Albinus, I liked you well, more than I ever showed; but if you had told me in plain terms that my presence had become irksome to you both, I should have prized your frankness highly, and then the happy recollections of our talks about painting, of our rambles in the world of color, would not have been so sadly darkened by the shadow of your faithless flight.”

“Yes, that is the letter of a homosexual,” said Albinus. “But all the same I’m glad he’s gone. Perhaps, Margot, God has punished me for distrusting you, but woe betide you if …”

“If what, Albert? Go on, finish your sentence …”

“No. Nothing. I believe you. Oh, I believe you.”

He was silent, and then he began to make that smothered sound—half moan, half bellow—which was always the beginning of his paroxysms of horror at the darkness surrounding him.

“The prince of all our senses,” he repeated several times in a faltering voice. “Ah, yes, the prince …”

When he had calmed down, Margot said that she was going out to the travel agency. She kissed his cheek and then tripped swiftly along the shady side of the street.

She entered a cool little restaurant and seated herself next to Rex. He was drinking white wine.

“Well,” he asked, “what did the poor beggar say to the letter? Didn’t I word it cutely?”

“Yes. it went down all right. On Wednesday we are leaving for Zurich to see that specialist. Please, see about the tickets. But please take yours in a different carriage—it’s safer.”

“I’m doubtful,” remarked Rex carelessly, “whether they’ll let me have the tickets for nothing.”

Margot smiled tenderly and began taking out notes from her handbag.

“And as a general thing,” added Rex, “it would be much simpler if I were the cashier.”