He moves up toward us. The amorphous maze from which he has condensed is now an aura. He moves up from the right, he crosses the front vision of our eyes. He is very near, bearing leftward toward the house, yet slantwise so that he will not touch our room.
A youth, straight, rhythmic, with his profile sharp and his mouth a shadow in the white of his face, and his eye an impalpable fire. His hair is a tangle of shadows like the last embers in a hearth. Now he is white, dazzlingly crystalline, across the black of the night, across the gaze of our eyes!
He passes bearing toward the left. He disappears.
Mildred speaks:
“He has gone into the other room.”
And all of us, not knowing how we know, know she speaks the truth.
We turn about and see each other, and rejoice seeing ourselves so palpable in the warm, shut room.
“He is in the other room.”
“The hall is long, and the door is shut that leads into the other room.”
My mother moves to the door. As she puts her hand on the key she shudders. It is a terrible thing for me to see the lovely and proud flesh of my mother broken in a shudder. But she turns the key. She moves, as if blown by a wind, back to among us.