It was perhaps her deafness which
created this empty soundlessness.
When she came with the omelette, I said to her loudly:
'That was very good, the soup and meat.' So she quivered nervously, and
said, 'Thank you,' and I managed to talk to her. She was like most deaf
people, in that her terror of not hearing made her six times worse than
she actually was.
She spoke with a soft, strange accent, so I thought she was perhaps a
foreigner. But when I asked her she misunderstood, and I had not the
heart to correct her. I can only remember she said her house was always
full in the winter, about Christmas-time. People came for the winter
sport. There were two young English ladies who always came to her.
She spoke of them warmly. Then, suddenly afraid, she drifted off again.
I ate the omelette with cognac, which was very good, then I looked in
the street. It was very dark, with bright stars, and smelled of snow.
Two village men went by. I was tired, I did not want to go to the inn.
So I went to bed, in the silent, wooden house. I had a small bedroom,
clean and wooden and very cold. Outside, the stream was rushing.
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