Деница Минчева

→“Here’s a lovely bit of ceramics by Gertrude and Otto Natzler, Acton. Are you familiar with their work?”

→Now Acton wiped the forks and spoons and took down all the plaques and special ceramic dishes from the wall itself …

→Acton paused over the table where the boxes of cutlery were laid out, hearing once more Huxley’s voice, remembering all the touchings and gesturings.

→“Nonsense, look at this silver, this exquisite craftsmanship.”

→“I haven’t time,” Acton said. “I’ve got to see Lily –”

→“I want to show you my Gregorian cutlery, Acton,” Huxley had said. Oh, that casual, that _hypnotic_ voice!

→In the dining room he came to a table.

→He got a chair and brought it over under the chandelier and put one foot up on it and took it down and threw the chair, violently, laughing, into a corner. Then he ran out of the room, leaving one wall as yet unwashed.

→His mouth slipped open and the tongue moved along his lips and he looked at the chandelier and looked away and looked back at the chandelier and looked at Huxley’s body and then at the crystal chandelier with its long pearls of rainbow glass.

→His fingers twitched at his sides.

→He gazed up at the chandelier.

→He walked over to the bowl and took out the wax fruit and polished the ones at the bottom and put them back, and polished the picture frame.

→“Two o’clock,” he said, finishing the wall, glaring at the clock.

→He took off his coat, put it on a chair.

→“Oh, all right!” Raging, he swept the wall up and down, back and forth, with gloved hands, sweating, grunting, swearing, bending, rising, and getting redder of face.

→“That proves nothing!”

→“Look at it, you idiot! See how the whorls go? See?”

→“Don’t start _that_ again!” he snapped, and rubbed it out. He pulled off a glove and held his hand up, trembling, in the glary light.

→“Are you sure?”

→“And this one, over here,” scoffed Acton. “That’s the print of a fat man.”