You are merely (let us say) 273.
Up you go in the lift, realising, as for the first time, your
insignificance in infinity, and rather proud to be even a number. You
recognise your double on the door that has been unlocked for you. No
prisoner, clapped into his cell, could feel less personal, less
important. A notice on the wall, politely requesting you to leave your
key at the bureau (as though you were strong enough or capacious
enough to carry it about with you) comes as a pleasant reminder of
your freedom. You remember joyously that you are even free from
yourself. You have begun a new life, have forgotten the old. This
mantelpiece, so strangely and brightly bare of photographs or
`knickknacks,' is meaning in its meaninglessness. And these blank,
fresh walls, that you have never seen, and that never were seen by any
one whom you know...their pattern is of poppies and mandragora,
surely. Poppies and mandragora are woven, too, on the brand-new
Axminster beneath your elastic step. `Come in!' A porter bears in your
trunk, deposits it on a trestle at the foot of the bed, unstraps it,
leaves you alone with it. It seems to be trying to remind you of some-
thing or other. You do not listen. You laugh as you open it. You know
that if you examined these shirts you would find them marked `273.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72