He had closed the door carefully, silently, behind him, and was in the dim hall with his foot on the first step of the familiar stairs. His left hand was in his trousers pocket, clutching the key to the apartment two flights up; his right hand, in the pocket of his overcoat, was closed around the butt of the revolver. Yes, here I am, he thought, and how absurd! He felt that if he had ever known anything in his life he knew that he would not go up the stairs, unlock the door, and pull the trigger of the revolver.

She would probably be sitting in the blue chair with many cushions, reading; so he had often found her. He shivered so violently that he almost lost his balance as his foot found the next step.His mind seemed suddenly clear and intolerably full, like a gigantic switchboard, with pegs in all the holes at once and every wire humming with an unwonted and monstrous burden. A vast intricacy of reasons, arguments, proofs—you are timid and vengeless, you are cautious and would be safe, you would be lost even if safe, you are futile, silly, evil, petty, absurd—he could not have spoken in all his years the limitless network of appeals, facts, memories, that darted at him and through him as his foot sought the third step.

He heard them all....


Copyright © 1929 by Rebecca Bradbury, Chris Maroc, and Liz Maroc, renewed 1957

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