“She doesn’t know how to behave. She loves a brawl. You had better go to her.”
“No use my going as long as I’m not called.”
“Just as you please.”
He left. The glimmer of hunger grew fainter in his eyes.
Moshkin continued to walk the streets. His mind realized in a slow, dull way the drawing-room scene, the mutilated pictures, and the young woman under the divan.
The dull waters of the canal lured him. The receding light of the setting sun made their surface beautiful and sad, like the music of a mad composer. How rough the stone slabs were on the canal’s banks, and how dusty the stones of the pavements, and what stupid and dirty children ran to meet him! Everything seemed shut against him and everything seemed hostile to him.
The green, golden waters of the canal lured him, and the glimmer of hunger in his eyes went out for ever.
What a noise the swift splash of water made, as, ring after ring, the dead black rings spread out and out, and cut the green golden waters of the canal.