And I, as if I did not know a human word, stood silent, merely stared, without comprehending
that he was talking to me. He must have told me to leave, for with his thin paper stomach he slowly pressed me to the side, to the more brightly lighted end of the corridor and poked me in the back.
“Beg your pardon ... I wanted ... I thought that she, I-330 ... but behind me....”
“Stay where you are,” said the doctor brusquely, and he disappeared.
At last! At last she was nearby, here, and what did it matter where “here” was? I saw the familiar saffron-yellow silk, the smile-bite, the eyes with their curtains drawn.... My lips quivered, so did my hands and knees, and I had a most stupid thought: “Vibrations make sounds. Shivering must make a sound. Why then don’t I hear it?”
Her eyes opened for me widely. I entered into them.
“I could not ... any longer!... Where have you been?... Why?...”
I was unable to tear my eyes away from her for a second, and I talked as if in a delirium, fast and incoherently, or perhaps I only thought without speaking out: “A shadow ... behind me. I died. And from the cupboard.... Because that doctor of yours ... speaks with his scissors.... I have a soul ... incurable ... and I must walk....”
“An incurable soul? My poor boy!” I-330 laughed. She covered me with the sparkles of her
laughter; my delirium left me. Everywhere around her little