‘The next day I watched and waited all day long, seeking the cat in the garden and everywhere else, in vain. It was nowhere to be found. That night it did not appear in my dreams either. But the day after, I saw it emerging from the corridor again, taking its time as usual. I followed stealthily at a distance. It went into the garden, came to a halt under the big pear tree on the lawn, and waited … I began to approach; it didn’t move. I drew very close, bent down, and stroked its back — it purred and began to rub itself against my leg. Then I dropped onto the cool lawn, still damp from the dew, and took the cat onto my lap. It let me. I stroked it again and again and looked into its eyes, which were now, unlike in my dream, light blue and transparent as glass. As I stroked, my fingers crept closer and closer to its neck, and suddenly I wrapped them round it, the fingers of both hands, and began to squeeze, harder and harder. The cat uttered one brief wail and was silent. It twitched and jerked, trying to reach my face, but I held it at arm’s length. I squeezed harder and harder, its eyes grew very round and protruded from its head, and in the end it stopped twitching. A long, narrow tongue, like a pink ribbon, poked out at me. It seemed to me that it was still moving, and I went on squeezing. In the end I threw it down in disgust. With a dull thud it fell onto the lawn and lay still, with its legs outspread. I jumped up. It had to be hidden, but the idea of touching it filled me with revulsion. However, I had no choice. I gripped it by the tip of its tail and carried it to the raspberry bushes next to the fence and hid it there. That evening I removed it and threw it into the river.’

There was a short pause. Then Gurdweill said: ‘A strange, nasty story … very nasty indeed …’

Unconsciously he turned to look at the cat, which was still lying on Poldy’s lap. He felt vaguely ashamed and was unable to look Freddy in the eye. The latter had dwelled on the details with a strange, sadistic enjoyment, he thought. No doubt this cat, too, would come to the same sticky end … Gurdweill was horrified by his own thoughts, which he suddenly suspected Freddy of being able to read without the intervention of words. He tried to think of something to say to distract Freddy’s attention, but his mind was a blank. Thea was still talking to Poldy. When would they sit down to eat? For a moment he imagined that he felt an emptiness in his stomach. At any rate he wanted to get the meal over and leave.