The nurse behind the circular counter wheeled her swivel chair back into place before her typewriter and began sorting large yellow cards. I wanted to ask her more, but I could not think of a way to frame my questions. To be sure, the doctor’s death was no more than coincidence and my mother, who all day long talked tenderly to herself in Russian and one by one ripped the petals from his fading flowers, was no more to blame for it than I, or than this imperturbable woman in the starched white cap. Though I had cared nothing for this stammering dandy and had many times wished him out of the way, I had wished him no harm, “out of the way” having meant only “out of our house.” But I was shaken with something simulating the grief I had felt when I dropped my brother’s hand, and my knees went weak, as I remembered that I had sometimes pitied the man. I had pictured him in his library, perfectly groomed, as if his loving toilet had been made for some honored guest, though no one ever called on him, and he sat alone, sunk in his jejune thoughts that the whiskey enshrouded. Gossip ran that in this room, the shrine of his dead wife’s sacred objects, there was a bar concealed in the paneling which opened at the pressure of a button, so that in the evenings Dr. Galbraith could dispense with the services of his butler who was allowed to enter the room only in the morning to clear away the evidences of his master’s lonesome spree before the parlor-maid came in to clean. I wished to ask the nurse if he had died there. Once he had told me that two malachite urns stood on his mantelpiece and that the draperies were ruby-colored brocade. Perhaps he had chosen as his shroud one of his Scotch tweed suits in which the brown was enriched with red and with it he had worn green socks and a green cravat.

“When is the funeral?” I asked, although I did not really want to know.

“I haven’t the least idea,” replied the nurse without looking up. “You might ask his housekeeper. All I know is that he is to be cremated.”

I felt that if I moved from the counter where I rested my elbows, I would fall in my weakness. An interne who had been watching me absent-mindedly as he whirled a piece of rubber tubing round and round, pocketed his plaything and stepped to my side. Out of a mechanical kindness, he placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “Take it easy.” I burst into tears, inexplicable to myself, and stumbled through the sunlit lobby, my legs enfeebled, my mind a blank. The scene detached itself from its aseptic smell and the white entourage of nurses and internes: its properties receded and I, hurtling up the road, was too alone to measure the degree of my loneliness, for I did not know where to turn for advice.