September came and went. Then in October I was visited by a mood of such unremitting desperateness that I suddenly stopped my work and my violent exercise. I felt incapable of any action, for I had exhausted all my energy. I had used up my capacity for suffering; I could feel neither pain nor pleasure. For days I sat stupidly in my office, staring at nothing. I closed my door to all visitors; I transacted no business; I answered no letters.
Then, one morning, as I was moodily pacing up and down my private room, a clerk entered with a telegram. Idly I tore open the envelope and read its contents. It was from Madame—just one word, “Come.” But that word meant everything: it changed the whole world for me....
Two days later I was in Salonika. I did not wait even to call on Madame de Stran, but went straight to Judith’s house.
It was early afternoon. I was admitted. The room into which I was shown was empty. Already greatly agitated, I felt my excitement increasing almost beyond bounds whilst I waited. What should I say when she entered? Would she still be thrall to her dead husband? Would his personality still envelop hers and obscure it?
She entered so silently that, though my eyes were fixed on the door, I scarcely realized she was there. A swift searching of her face told me she was well.
She was courteous, she was kind; but she was timid. She spoke of her friends in Constantinople.
“I have been very busy with my work,” she said, smiling.
As she looked at me it seemed to me that she was doing everything possible to be gentle with me; it was as though she knew she had the power to hurt me, and was afraid that some chance word might wound.
“Work?” I asked.
“Yes. My husband left his last book half finished—a great mass of notes, and a rough synopsis of each chapter. I wrote the book as he wished it to be written. He helped me all the time.”