How are things in the other rooms? he thinks abruptly.

But he brushes this thought aside just as abruptly. I haven’t the time. Everyone must attend to his own business in his own room, and leave everyone else alone. That’s the solution, he tells himself. I could have gone out and told them, but what’s the use of saying anything to people like that?

He goes on listening to the cracking.

Why can’t I work in peace? All I want is to be allowed to work in peace on what interests me. I don’t demand much! If only everyone thought like that, he says, wishing someone could hear him.

Well, back to work.

His pen is lying on the desk, but when he tries to pick it up his arm seems numb and he makes a grasping movement at one side of the pen, his nails clawing in the dust on the desk, making a scraping sound.

He gives a start and looks at the scratches he has made. That was a near thing, he thinks, without knowing what he means.

But what are they doing in the other rooms?

I don’t want to be bothered with that!

His body turns cold in the midst of its feverish trembling: perhaps someone from the other rooms might come in here?

What about the door?

He jumps to his feet and inspects it. The door is strong and solid. The lock is strong and solid too, and makes a satisfactory, oily click when he turns the key in it.

He turns it, but it has already been turned twice so it will go no further.

So he sits down at the desk again. And listens.

What is this thing in the storm? It passes through you as if you were nothing but a sieve….

Time passes. Eyelids droop quietly in a corner. There is no distinction between night and day in the bewitched house. The lamps are always burning, but night droops its eyelids just the same. Martin notices this.

Ah yes, and so to bed, he thinks. The routine. He goes across to the wall and opens yet another hidden door. There is a comfortable bed in there. He goes in and undresses, takes off his clammy shirt and showers in the narrow passage, then gets into the bed in the wall, leaving the door to his room open to give himself air. Otherwise he might die.

He says: It must be night now. I’ll get to sleep and see if I feel better in the morning.

He has switched off the lamp and it is quite dark. But somewhere far, far away stars are striding across the wide plains of the sky. One knows about them. No one has been allowed to see them since the darkness seethed up and engulfed this house – but one knows they are there. One lies imagining that this soundless, powerful storm creates a mist, and in this mist the Pleiades are hanging with a slight tail following them, but perhaps they are really burning. And all the other stars are shining softly, as hazy as milk. They have done so since the storm set in above the unhappy, beautiful house. Martin lies here, and knows about it, even though not a single ray will reach him.