It was impossible to explain why she had been abandoning more and more her reading of the novel in order to concentrate on the close examination of the doll Juan had given her, thinking about his whims, in which at times he also liked to examine her all over like a doll, and wondering which of Monsieur Ochs's fantasies was awaiting its moment in the stuffing of that small round stomach, unless there was nothing, unless Juan had been amusing himself by telling her lies that night on the Calais train. Then the weight of silence in Ladislao Boleslavski's room, a sticky and humiliating fear, had slowly climbed up to Tell, making her get dressed suddenly, open the double door after spying carefully through the peephole, climb the historic stairs, and run through the shadows to the first door that was ajar, behind which nothing could stop her from clutching Juan almost convulsively and discovering with a sudden and inopportune rejoicing that Juan was trembling, too, and that his first reaction on feeling Tell's hands close to his face had been the start of a left-handed half nelson that only the guardian angel of all Scandinavians was able to convert into an embrace of recognition and a turning together which coincided with the movement Frau Marta was making that started to wiggle the bed, still lighting up the face of the English girl, who, with her eyes open and staring, seemed unaware of the slow movement of the dark lantern. Tell had been at the point of shouting, and Juan's hand had come forward in anticipation to plaster something on her mouth that was like five frozen pieces of adhesive tape, and Tell had understood and Juan had withdrawn his fingers to sink them into Tell's shoulder with the imaginable message that I'm here don't be afraid, which didn't mean a great deal for Tell from the way Juan was trembling and from the fascination of that face inscribed in a yellow disk and which seemed to be smiling slightly as if waiting. But they'd come too late, they knew it now, with no need to say it, and it almost would have been ridiculous to shout, turn on the lights, and rouse up the hotel for something already done and the ad infinitum repetition of which made it worse. It was better to stay glued to the door in order to watch. After all, they had moved to the King of Hungary Hotel for that - not exactly for that, but since their good intentions had failed, there wasn't much left for them to do and, besides, the English girl seemed so placid and happy, watching the advance step by step of Frau Marta, who was outlined behind the dark lantern like a dry and angular old tree, one hand in the air near the one that held the light, the grey halo of hair illuminated by a remnant of the light that must have been leaking through some crack in the tin, unless all dark lanterns lost a little light through the back part, and Erszebet Bathori's light had also vaguely lighted up the black hair of the countess as she approached the bed where a servant girl tied hand and foot was struggling with a gag in her mouth, so different from the English girl, although perhaps after the first visit they all waited for the countess like that. All of them were probably sitting up in bed, no longer with bonds or gags, joined by another deeper bond to the visitor who put the dark lantern on the night table so that it would keep on lighting up the profile of the girl who hadn't moved, the throat which Frau Marta's hand slowly uncovered by pulling down the lace collar of the pink pajamas.
[62: A Model Kit, Cortazar, J.]
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