THI: r-ERRACE
681
"You're right. Tablets. Anyway, it's too late now, and this
must be the last night of my life. You know me and you
also
know that I am .not saying this .just to be talking. There's only
one thing I would like: for this night to laSt .a little longer than
the others, since it is the last one in my life. I can't bear the idea
of the sun's coming up in a few hours. I don't want to see it. I
don't want to be alive when the daylight appears. Have you
noticed how ugly people are in the sunlight? Their wide foolish
faces, with hairs in their noses. By daylight the streets, houses,
cities, too, .are ugly. Everywhere there are a thousand horrible
little things: dead men in elevators. Dead and standing. Strange
things that walk on all fours and bark. And a lot of poverty with
a clean shirt. And a lot of hatred."
"Also a little love, Matilda. Also .a great deal of love, I
would say."
"Everything is dusty and dry and dirty. Or too bright.
Haven't you noticed? Little trivial things to make you laugh and
suffer at the same time. Haven't you seen those streets with
rubber patches on the sidewalk? And people recently shaved
with sleep-swollen faces? Haven't you noticed that people are
uglier in the summertime than in winter? They all have too fat
ankles and pimply noses. I'll be gone before daylight. I don't
want to see those things again. But I would like for the night to
be longer, I wish this night would last for two or three days,
because I 'am rather cowardly and afraid of suicide. No more
afraid than anybody else. Anyway, I will do it."
With the drowsy tone he was wont to use for important
revelations, Bob said:
"Listen, Matilda, I can make this night last .as long as you
wish. Six hours? A hundred? How long do you want me to
stretch out the night for you and put off the hour of dawn,
dear?"
"This is no time for joking, Bob."
She was far from imagining, she told herself there on the
terrace, that Bob was serious. She recalled that they crossed over
