“Oh, I don’t know,” I replied. “I’ll stroll about for a while. Good-by.”
“Good-by.”
VI.
I WALKED along aimlessly, recounting all the happenings of the last few weeks. I was astonished at my own blank insensibility. “Why, Veronika, the Veronika you loved, is dead, murdered,” I said to myself, “and you, you who loved her, have been in prison and on trial for the crime. They have outraged you. They have sworn falsely against you. And the very core of your life has been torn out. Yet you—what has come over you? Are you heartless, have you no capacity for grief or indignation? Oris it that you are still half stunned? And that presently you will come to and begin to feel?” I strode on and on. It was broad day now. By and by I looked around.
I was in Second avenue, near its southern extremity. I was standing in front of a large red brick house. A white placard nailed to the door caught my eye. “Room to let,” it said in big black letters.
“Room to let?” I repeated. “Why, I am in need of a room.” And I entered the house and engaged the room. The landlady asked my name. I told her it was Lexow, that having been the maiden-name of my mother. Neuman had acquired too unpleasant a notoriety through the published accounts of the trial. As Lexow I have been known ever since.
I employed an express agent to go to the Tombs and bring back my luggage.
Then I sat at my window and watched the people pass in the street. I sat there stockstill all day. I was aware of a vague feeling of wretchedness, of a vague craving for a relief which I could not name. As dusk gathered, a lump grew bigger and bigger in my throat. “I am beginning to be unhappy,” I thought. “It is high time.” My insensibility had frightened as well as puzzled me. Instinctively, I knew it could not last forever, knew it for the calm that precedes the storm. I was anxious that the storm should break while I was still strong enough to cope with its fury. Waiting weakened me. Besides, I was ashamed of myself, hated myself as one shallow and disloyal. That I could be indifferent to Veronika’s death! I, who had called myself her lover!