Fear Read Online Free PDF Page B

stammered, surprised by his suddenly piercing gaze, It seemed to be forcing its way further and further into her, and now she felt it deep inside, close to her heart. She could have cried out aloud beneath that searching, determined gaze.
    “How very strange,” he murmured at last. There was a note of sombre amazement in his voice. She dared not ask what he meant. But a shudder ran through her when, as he turned away without another word, she saw his shoulders, broad, wide, strong, vigorous, attracting her gaze to the nape of his neck, which was hard as iron. Like a murderer’s , the thought flashed through her mind, a crazy thought, instantly dismissed. Only now, as if she were seeing her own husband for the first time, did she feel with horror that he was powerful and dangerous.
    The music began to play again. A gentleman came up to her, and automatically she took his arm. But now everything about her seemed weighty, and the bright melody no longer brought movement into her stiff limbs. A dull heaviness moved down from her hearttowards her feet, every step she took hurt. She had to ask her partner to excuse her. As she stepped back she instinctively looked to see if her husband was near, and jumped in alarm. He was standing directly behind her, as if waiting for her, and once again his penetrating eyes met hers. What did he want? What did he know? She instinctively clutched her dress together at the neck, as if her breasts were bare and she must shield them from him. His silence was as persistent as his gaze.
    “Shall we leave now?” she asked anxiously.
    “Yes.” His voice sounded harsh and unfriendly. He went ahead. Once again she was looking at the broad, menacing back of his neck. Someone put her fur around her shoulders, but she still felt freezing cold. They drove home in silence, sitting side-by-side.
     
    That night she had an oppressive dream. Some kind of strange, loud music was playing, she saw a brightly lit, high-ceilinged hall, she went in. A crowd of people and many bright colours were mingled in movement. Then a young man whose identity she thought she knew, although she could not entirely place him, made his way to her. He took her arm, and she danced with him. She felt well, she was soft and yielding. A great wave of music bore her up, so thatshe no longer felt the floor beneath her feet, and they danced through many halls with golden chandeliers high up in the roof, radiating little flames like stars, while mirrors on wall after wall reflected her own smile again and again to infinity. The dancing grew wilder and wilder, the music more and more urgent. She realised that the young man was pressing closer to her, his hand digging into her bare arm, making her groan with painful pleasure, and now, as her eyes plunged deep into his, she did think she knew him. She thought he was an actor whom she had adored from afar when she was a little girl. Delighted, she was just about to speak his name, but he silenced her soft cry with an ardent kiss. And so, their lips merged together, the two of them burning like a single body in each other’s embrace, they flew through the halls as if borne up on a blissful wind. The walls streamed past, she was no longer conscious of the hovering vault of the ceiling or of the hour, she felt amazingly weightless, all her limbs relaxed. And then, suddenly, someone touched her on the shoulder. She stopped, and the music stopped at the same time, the lights went out, the dark walls moved in on her, and her dancing partner had disappeared. “Give him back, you thief!” shouted that terrible woman, for it was she, making the walls ring with the sound, and she closed ice-cold fingers around Irene’s wrist. She resisted,hearing herself cry out with a mad shriek of horror, and the two of them wrestled, but the other woman was stronger. She tore off Irene’s pearl necklace, and half her dress with it, leaving her breasts bare and her arms exposed beneath the rags now hanging off