Journey by Moonlight

His restlessness became intense. He thought of that night when he had wandered the streets of Rome until dawn and then found himself outside this same little house, when his imagination conjured up all the mysterious and criminal things that went on behind its silent walls. This was the house where the murders took place. And here he was, inside the house. The walls were alarmingly silent. Here he lay delivered over to the darkness, as he had wanted.

He remained prostrate for a while, in steadily increasing restlessness, then tried to get up. But his movements ran into difficulty, and the blood throbbed painfully in his head. Better to stay lying down. He listened intently. His eyes became used to the darkness and his ears to the silence. A thousand little noises, strange, nearby, distinctly Italian sounds, could be heard all around. The house was more or less awake. A dim light came in from under the door.

If these people were planning something … What madness it was to have brought money with him! And where had he put his money? But of course, he had lain down fully dressed. It must be in his wallet. He groped for the wallet. It was not in its place. It was not in any of his pockets.

Well, that much was certain: they had stolen his money. Perhaps two hundred lire. Never mind that … what else might they want? Would they allow him to leave and report them? That would be madness. No, these people were going to kill him, without question.

Then the door opened and Vannina came in, carrying some sort of night-light. She looked furtively towards the bed and, when she saw that Mihály was awake, put on the face of someone surprised and came up to the bed. She even said something he did not understand, but which did not sound very pleasant.

Then she put the night-light down and sat on the edge of the bed. She stroked his hair and face, murmuring encouragements in Italian to sleep peacefully.

“Of course, she’s waiting for me to fall sleep, and then … I shan’t sleep!”

Then he remembered with horror what force of suggestion there was in this girl, and realised that he certainly would sleep if she willed it. And indeed, closing his eyes as the girl smoothed down his eyelashes, he fell instantly into a babbling half-dream.

In this half-dream he seemed to hear them talking in the next room. There was a man’s voice that seemed to growl roughly, the rapid speech of another man from time to time, and the constant staccato whispering of the girl. Without doubt they were now discussing whether to kill him. The girl was perhaps protecting him, perhaps the opposite. Now, now, he really ought to wake. How often had he had this dream, that some terrible danger was approaching and he couldn’t wake however hard he tried: and now it was coming true. Then he dreamed that something was flashing before his eyes, and, with a rattle in his throat, he awoke.

There was light in the room. The night-light was burning on the table. He sat up and looked fearfully around, but saw no-one there. The murmur of speech still came through from the next room, but it was now much quieter, and he could not distinguish between the speakers.

The terror of death ran through and through him. He was afraid in his whole body. He could feel them closing in on him, with knives, the rat-people. He wrung his hands in despair. Something was holding him down. He could not get out of the bed.

The only thing that calmed him slightly was the night-light, which flared and cast the sort of shadows on the walls he remembered in his room as a child. The night-light led him to think of Vannina’s finely-shaped hand: earlier, when it held the lamp, he had stared at it for some time without really paying attention.

“Why am I afraid?” he suddenly started. For this, this thing that was about to happen right now, was what he had wanted, what he had planned. Yes, he was going to die — but he wanted to die — and there beside him, in the flesh, perhaps even taking part, would be a beautiful girl bearing a special secret, in the role of death-demon, as on the Etruscan tombs.

Now he really longed for it. His teeth chattered and his arms were numb with terror, but he wanted it to happen. They would open the door and the girl would come in to him, come to the bed and kiss and embrace him, while the murder weapon went about its work … Let her come and embrace him … only let her come … only let them open the door …

But the door did not open. Already outside the early morning cocks were crowing, the next room was completely silent, the night-light itself was flickering low, and he fell into a deep sleep.

Then it was morning, like any other morning. He woke in a bright room, a bright friendly room, to Vannina coming in and asking how he had slept. It was morning, a normal, friendly Italian summer morning. Soon it would be horribly hot, but now it was still pleasant. Only the aftertaste of last night’s drunkenness troubled him, nothing else.