She was on her way toward the door to answer the telephone when she heard her husband’s voice – she thought he was napping on the divan, but maybe the telephone had woken him – so she turned around to go back into the kitchen. His words reached her, as if from a distance, through the glass door: Thank you very much, that’s very kind of you, but my wife doesn’t dance.

She stopped and listened, blood rushing to her cheeks, and her heart started hammering as if some danger was approaching. What’s wrong? she thought, shaken up. Nothing has happened. Of course he knows I don’t dance. Everyone knows I can’t. If we’re invited out to dance, it’s a perfectly natural thing to let them know.

She continued her work in the kitchen, feeling distracted and strangely awkward. She had never tried to hide it from him. It wouldn’t have been possible anyway. Ever since he had kissed her for the first time, he must have known, or even before he ever met her. It was something people mentioned whenever her name came up. ‘She had childhood paralysis, the poor thing.’ But it didn’t mean anything to him, apparently – and might that be the real reason she fell in love with him? In his eyes she had never seen any of that horribly considerate sympathy.

She started peeling potatoes with quick, mechanical movements, while at the same time trying to calm herself down: Nothing happened, it was just that I heard it by chance (but would he have said the same thing if I had been in the room?). Who was calling? Maybe an old college buddy who didn’t know anything about her. A hollow melancholy enveloped her with an unmerciful darkness she could not escape. Something had changed suddenly, though she couldn’t say exactly what it was.