The invention of Morel - Adolfo Bioy Casares [32]
"But why is Morel so angry? I've never seen him like this!"
"Well, anyway, Morel has behaved badly," said the man with the protruding teeth. "He should have told us beforehand."
"I'm going to go and find him," said Stoever.
"Stay here!" shouted Dora.
"I'll go," said the man with protruding teeth. "No, I'm not going to make any trouble. I'll just ask him to excuse us and to come back and continue his speech."
They all crowded around Stoever. Excitedly they tried to calm him.
After a while the man with protruding teeth returned. "He won't come," he said. "He asks us to forgive him. I couldn't get him to come back."
Faustine, Dora, and the old woman went out of the room; then some others followed.
Only Alec, the man with protruding teeth, Stoever, and Irene remained. They seemed calm, but very serious. Then they left together.
I heard some people talking in the assembly hall, and others on the stairway. The lights went out and the house was left in the livid light of dawn. I waited, on the alert. There was no noise, there was almost no light. Had they all gone to bed? Or were they lying in wait to capture me? I stayed there, for how long I do not know, trembling, and finally I began to
walk (I believe I did this to hear the sound of my own footsteps and to have evidence of some life), without noticing that perhaps I was doing exactly what my supposed pursuers wanted me to do.
I went to the table, put the yellow papers in my pocket. I saw (and it made me afraid) that the room had no windows, that I would have to pass through the assembly hall in order to get out of the building. I walked very slowly; the house seemed unending. I stood still in the doorway. Finally I walked slowly, silently, toward an open window,- I jumped out and then I broke into a run.
When I got to the lowlands, I reproached myself for not having gone away the first day, for wanting to find out about those mysterious people.
After Morel's explanation, it seemed that this was a plot organized by the police,- I could not forgive myself for being so slow to understand.
My suspicion may seem absurd, but I believe I can justify it. Anyone would distrust a person who said, "My companions and I are illusions; we are a new kind of photograph." In my case the distrust is even more justified: I have been accused of a crime, sentenced to life imprisonment, and it is possible that my capture is still somebody's profession, his hope of bureaucratic promotion.
But I was tired, so I went to sleep at once, making vague plans to escape. This had been a very exciting day.
I dreamed of Faustine. The dream was very sad, very touching. We were saying good-bye; they were coming to get her; the ship was about to leave. Then we were alone, saying a romantic farewell. I cried during the dream and then woke up feeling miserable and desperate because Faustine was not there; my only consolation was that we had not concealed our love. I was afraid that Faustine had gone away while I was sleeping. I got up and looked around. The ship was gone. My sadness was profound: it made me decide to kill myself. But when I glanced up I saw St never, I )ora, and some of the others on the hillside.
I did not need to see I-austine. I (bought then that I was safe: it no longer mattered whet IHM she was there.
I understood that what Morel had said several hours ago was true (but very possibly he did not say it for the first time several hours ago, but several years ago; he repeated it that night because it was part of the week, on the eternal record).
I experienced a feeling of scorn, almost disgust, for these people and their indefatigable, repetitious activity. They appeared many times up there on the edge of the hill. To be on an island inhabited by artificial ghosts was the most unbearable of nightmares,- to be in love with one of those images was worse than being in love with a ghost (perhaps we always want the person we love to have the existence of a ghost).
Here are the rest of the yellow papers that Morel did not read:
"I