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PARTISAN REVIEW
the chapel with its hooded man in the tympanum and headed for
the guest rooms in the wing. One after another they dropped away,
like berries shaken from a branch. Their song resounded more faintly
down the stairs and through the halls, and at last the host was left
alone with the refrain. . . .
He laughed loudly and happily, hurried down the carpeted
steps, and traversed the wet courtyard toward the main building. He
felt a deep contentment welling up in his chest: a sweet satisfaction
which stopped just short of satiety and disgust. The wind was from
the south. The unhealthily warm air, heavy with fog, certainly did
not help to clear his head. He was not really out of his senses: more
than this; he was transformed into another being who had left
his
former life behind and was being driven outward by his own mo–
mentum, like a boy flung loose from the chain of his playmates.
-Et il ne reviendra, he sang to himself, delighted, but broke off,
frightened by the sound that hung in the great stillness as though
frozen. Dimly recalling similar homecomings he took off
his
boots.
Standing there in his woolen socks, his feet looked to him like two
big gray mice; he curled his toes and they looked like ears. Laughing
childishly, he took off his socks, rolled them into a ball and threw
them upstairs; then he clambered after them. Where the socks are,
he mused, coat and trousers should also be.... To hell with you:
they flew to the ground, followed by his woolen vest and flannel
shirt (striped violet and green). There he stood, covered only by a
mesh jersey which looked like chain mail beneath the heavy steel
helmet, otherwise completely naked, on the red carpet.
Like this he should please his wife, he thought insanely, look–
ing toward the bedroom door: smooth and enigmatic it hung on its
heavy hinges. Next to it was a cupboard where liqueur bottles were
stored: kirsch, kiimmel, mint. It was good to have them handy at
night to console a stomach weakened by heavy meals and constant
tasting. He reached for a bottle not to calm himself, but to set free
completely what hung only by a thread. As he mixed several varieties
and toasted himself, it seemed to him that he heard someone breath–
ing. His first thought was: Johanna, but then he remembered that as
a boy he had often heard this rustling and seen, or rather imagined
he saw, in his lonely nights, two enormous wings, standing on end,
