"Rachel!" he cried aloud.
Silence. His tears had ended. He lay motionless on the bed, his body suddenly weak, his thought tired. Someone had shouted a name in his ears. A dead man had shouted the name of Rachel. It was the cry of an Erik Dorn who was dead. He'd heard it in the dark room. An old, already forgotten Erik Dorn who had laughed in a halloo of storms, heels up, head down. Madness and a dream. Wings and a face of stars. They had vanished with an old and almost forgotten Erik Dorn who had called their name out of a grave. So things whirled away.
He arose and stood looking out of the window. Night had come ... "dark rendezvous of sorrows. Silent Madonna of the spaces...." He whispered to see if there were still phrases in him. His lips smiled against the window. Phrases ... words ... and the rest was a make-believe once more. A pattern precise and meaningless. His little flight over. Now it was time to walk again.
Anna had stood one night staring at him. He remembered. Oh, yes, he'd run away quickly for fear he might hear her shriek. And then, Rachel. But these things were passed. It was time to walk. Did he still love her? Yes. It would have been easier to walk with her—calmly, placidly, their hands sometimes touching. Forgetting other days and other kisses together. But he would not lie to himself. An end to that now. Love made a liar of a man. At the beginning and at the end—lies. The ache now was one of memory, not of loss. The pain was one of death. Dead things hurt inside him. Afterward his heart would carry them about unknowingly. The dead things would end their hurt. But now, leaden heavy, they kept slipping deeper into him as if seeking graves that did not yet exist.
Standing before the window, Dorn's smile grew cold.
"A make-believe," he whispered, "but not quite the same as it was before. A loneliness and an emptiness. Ruins in which once there was feasting. And now, nothing ... nothing...."