"We are in a room, a little room; that is what you must keep saying
to yourself. And we shall leave the room as soon as we have found
the door."
And I promised him that, if he let me act, without disturbing me
by shouting and walking up and down, I would discover the trick
of the door in less than an hour's time.
Then he lay flat on the floor, as one does in a wood, and declared
that he would wait until I found the door of the forest, as there
was nothing better to do! And he added that, from where he was,
"the view was splendid!" The torture was working, in spite of all
that I had said.
Myself, forgetting the forest, I tackled a glass panel and began
to finger it in every direction, hunting for the weak point on which
to press in order to turn the door in accordance with Erik's system
of pivots. This weak point might be a mere speck on the glass,
no larger than a pea, under which the spring lay hidden.
I hunted and hunted. I felt as high as my hands could reach.
Erik was about the same height as myself and I thought that he would
not have placed the spring higher than suited his stature.
While groping over the successive panels with the greatest care,
I endeavored not to lose a minute, for I was feeling more and more
overcome with the heat and we were literally roasting in that
blazing forest.
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