Laughter in the Dark Read Online Free PDF

ease.
    The rain stopped, but they still walked under the umbrella. When they came to a halt at her front door, he closed the wet, shiny, beautiful thing and gave it back to her.
    “Don’t go away yet,” he pleaded (holding the while one hand in his pocket and endeavoring to push off his wedding ring with his thumb). “Don’t,” he repeated (it came off).
    “Getting late,” she said, “my aunt will be angry.”
    He seized her by the wrists and with the violence of shyness tried to kiss her, but she ducked and his lips met only her velvet cap.
    “Let me go,” she murmured, her head lowered. “You know you ought not to do that.”
    “But don’t go,” he cried. “I have no one in the world but you.”
    “I can’t, I can’t,” she answered, and turning the key in the lock she pressed against the great door with her small shoulder.
    “I shall wait for you again tomorrow,” said Albinus.
    She smiled at him through the glass pane and then ran down the dim passage toward the back yard.
    He took a deep breath, groped for his handkerchief, blew his nose, carefully buttoned, then unbuttoned, his overcoat; noticed how light and bare his hand felt and hurriedly slipped on the ring, which was still quite warm.

4
    A T HOME nothing had changed, and this seemed remarkable. Elisabeth, Irma, Paul, belonged, as it were, to another period, limpid and tranquil like the backgrounds of the early Italians. Paul, after working all day at his office, liked to pass a quiet evening at his sister’s home. He cherished a profound respect for Albinus, for his learning and taste, for the beautiful things around him—for the spinach-green Gobelin in the dining room, a hunt in a forest.
    When Albinus opened the door of his flat he felt a queer sinking in the pit of his stomach as he reflected that, in a moment, he would see his wife: would she not be able to read his perfidy in his face? For that walk in the rain was betrayal; all that had gone before had been only thoughts and dreams. Perhaps, by some dreadful mischance, his actions had been observed and reported? Perhaps he smelt of the cheap sweetscent she used? As he stepped into the hall he swiftly concocted in his mind a story that might come in handy: of a young artist, her poverty and her talent, and how he was trying to help her. But nothing had changed, neither the white door behind which his daughter was sleeping at the end of the passage, nor his brother-in-law’s vast overcoat which was hanging on its coat-hanger (a special hanger wound in red silk) as calmly and respectably as ever.
    He entered the sitting room. Here they were—Elisabeth in her familiar tweed dress with checks, Paul puffing at his cigar, and an old lady of their acquaintance, a baron’s widow who had been impoverished by the inflation and now carried on a small business in rugs and pictures.… No matter what they were discussing: the rhythm of everyday life was so comforting that he felt a spasm of joy: he had not been found out.
    And then later as he lay by his wife’s side in their bedroom, dimly lit, quietly furnished, with, as usual, part of the central heating apparatus (painted white) reflected in the mirror, Albinus marveled at his own divided nature: his affection for Elisabeth was perfectly secure and undiminished, but at the same time there burned in his mind the thought that perhaps no later than tomorrow—yes, certainly tomorrow—
    But it did not prove quite so easy. At their next meetings Margot skilfully contrived to avoid his love-making—and there was not the slightest chance of his being able to take her to a hotel. She did not tell him much about herself—only that she was an orphan, the daughter of a painter (curious coincidence, that), and lived with her aunt; that she was very hard up, but longed to give up her exhausting job.
    Albinus had introduced himself to her under the hurriedly assumed name of Schiffermiller, and Margot thought bitterly: “Another Miller—already,”