"I am out of doors, far away."
The glare of passing headlights displayed her closed, oblique eyes, her parted, flat lips, her idol-like aspect, which bestowed on her the impressiveness, the seeming infallibility, of those oracles that were anciently supposed to describe some future mood of the chaotic ebb and surge that human beings call life.
"Very old tree trunks. Great trailing vines. Huge flowers black in the moonlight. It is the very same place. Here is that clearing, and the squatting black men. Their hands are folded; their heads are bowed forward; they are filled with sadness. Near them, on the ground, lies the dead man whose body is covered with a cloth. It is the man who has loved you." She dropped Lilla's hand, protesting, "This is incredible!"
"Incredible?"
"Yes, because this scene appears to be still in the future. Do you understand me? Hasn't happened yet."
The limousine stopped before the Russian's door as Lilla, disgusted by this anticlimax, replied:
"You've repeated your old prophecy because it has haunted my mind ever since you made it that night at the Brassfields'. You've merely gotten back from me the impression that you stamped on my consciousness then."
"Then that is something new. These perceptions of mine have never referred to the past. Besides, I had just now—but how shall I explain it?—a powerful sense of the future. Ah, well, maybe this gift of mine is leaving me, since I've refused to use it. I sha'n't be sorry." As she got out of the car, she amended, "At least, I don't think I'm sorry to have disappointed you."
The door snapped shut on that hope: the world became fluid again: and Lilla was borne away toward another pity and another remorse.