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what I did, it all went at such breakneck speed, with such mindless haste … Ten minutes, no, five—no, two—after I had found out all about the woman, her name, where she lived and her story, I was racing back to my house on a borrowed bicycle, I threw a suit into my case, took some money and drove to the railway station in my carriage. I went without informing the district officer, without finding a locum for myself, I left the house just as it was, unlocked. The servants were standing around, the astonished women were asking questions. I didn’t answer, didn’t turn, drove to the station and took the next train to the city … only an hour after that woman had entered my room, I had thrown my life away and was running amok, careering into empty space.
    I ran straight on, headlong … I arrived in the city at six in the evening, and at ten past six I was at her house asking to see her. It was … well, as you will understand, it was the most pointless, stupid thing I could have done, but a man runs amok with empty eyes, he doesn’t see where he is going. The servant came back after a few minutes, cool and polite: his mistress was not well and couldn’t see anyone.
    I staggered away. I prowled around the house for an hour, possessed by the insane hope that she might perhaps come looking for me. Only then did I book into the hotel on the beach and went to my room with twobottles of whisky which, with a double dose of veronal, helped to calm me. At last I fell asleep … and that dull, troubled sleep was the only momentary respite in my race between life and death.”
     
    The ship’s bell sounded. Two hard, full strokes that vibrated on, trembling, in the soft pool of near-motionless air and then ebbed away in the quiet, endless rushing of the water washing around the keel, its sound mingling with his passionate tale. The man opposite me in the dark must have started in alarm, for his voice hesitated. Once again I heard his hand move down to find a bottle, and the soft gurgling. Then, as if reassured, he began again in a firmer voice.
    “I can scarcely tell you about the hours I passed from that moment on. I think, today, that I was in a fever at the time; at the least I was in a state of over-stimulation bordering on madness—as I told you, I was running amok. But don’t forget, it was Tuesday night when I arrived, and on Saturday—as I had now discovered—her husband was to arrive on the P&O steamer from Yokohama. So there were just three days left, three brief days for the decision to be made and for me to help her. You’ll understand that I knew I must help her at once, yet I couldn’t speak a word to her. And my need to apologise for my ridiculous, deranged behaviour drove me on. I knew how valuable every moment was, I knew it was a matter of life and death to her, yet I had no opportunity of approaching her with so much as a whisper or a sign, because my tempestuous foolishness in chasing after herhad frightened her off. It was … wait, yes … it was like running after someone warning that a murderer is on the way, and that person thinks you are the murderer yourself and so runs on to ruin … She saw me only as a man running amok, pursuing her in order to humiliate her, but I … and this was the terrible absurdity of it … I wasn’t thinking of that any more at all. I was destroyed already, I just wanted to help her, do her a service. I would have committed murder, any crime, to help her … but she didn’t understand that. When I woke in the morning and went straight back to her house, the boy was standing in the doorway, the servant whose face I had punched, and when he saw me coming—he must have been looking out for me—he hurried in through the door. Perhaps he went in only to announce my arrival discreetly … perhaps … oh, that uncertainty, how it torments me now … perhaps everything was ready to receive me, but then, when I saw him, I remembered my disgrace, and this time I didn’t