The sight of it recalled the silver hammer. I remembered how easily it fitted into my hand when I struck....
Every detail of the scene came back to me with incomparable vividness. But I did not even shiver. It seemed as if my determination to kill the instigator of the murder permitted me peacefully to evoke its brutal details.
If I reflected over my deed, it was to be surprised at it, not to condemn myself.
"Well," I said to myself, "I have killed this Morhange, who was once a baby, who, like all the others, cost his mother so much trouble with his baby sicknesses. I have put an end to his life, I have reduced to nothingness the monument of love, of tears, of trials overcome and pitfalls escaped, which constitutes a human existence. What an extraordinary adventure!"
That was all. No fear, no remorse, none of that Shakespearean horror after the murder, which, today, sceptic though I am and blasé and utterly, utterly disillusioned, sets me shuddering whenever I am alone in a dark room.
"Come," I thought. "It's time. Time to finish it up."
I picked up the dagger. Before putting it in my pocket, I went through the motion of striking. All was well. The dagger fitted into my hand.
I had been through Antinea's apartment only when
guided, the first time by the white Targa, the second time, by the leopard. Yet I found the way again without trouble. Just before coming to the door with the rose window, I met a Targa.
"Let me pass," I ordered. "Your mistress has sent for me." The man obeyed, stepping back.