MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

[3130] From a distance the kitchen had se^emed to be in darkness. [3131] And in a
sense it was. [3132] But in another sense it was not. [3133] For gluing my eyes to the
window-pane I discerned a faint reddish glow which could not have come
from the oven, for I had no oven, but a simple gas-stove. [3134] An oven if you
like, but a gas-oven. [3135] That is to say there was a real oven too in the
kitchen, but out of service.

[3136] I'm sorry, but there it is, in a house
without a gas-oven I would not have felt easy. [3137] In the night, interrup-
-ting my prowl, I like to go up to a window, lit or unlit, and look into
the room, to see what is going on. [3138] I cover my face with my hands and peer
through my fingers. [3139] I have terrified more than one neighbour in this way.
[3140] He rushes outside, finds no one.

[3141] For me then from their darkness the
dark^est rooms emerge, as if still instant with the vanished day or with
the light turned out a moment before, for reasons perhaps of which less said
the better. [3142] But the gloaming in the kitchen was of another kind and came
from the night-light with the red chimney which, in Martha's room,
adjoining the kitchen, burned eternally at the feet of a little Virgin
carved in wood, hanging on the wall.

[3143] Weary of rocking herself^[₰] she had
gone in and lain down on her bed, leaving the door of her room open so as
to miss none of the sounds in the house. [3144] But perhaps she had gone to sleep.

[3145] I went upstairs again. [3146] I stopped at my son's door. [3147] I stooped and
applied my ear to the keyhole. [3148] Some apply the eye, I the ear, to keyholes.
[3149] I heard nothing, to my great surprise. [3150] For my son slept noisily, with
open mouth. [3151] I took good care not to open the door. [3152] For this silence was
of a nature to occupy my mind, for some little time. [3153] I went to my room.

[3154] It was then the unheard of sight was to be seen of Moran making ready
to go without knowing where he was going, having consulted neither map nor
time-table, considered neither itinerary nor halts, heedless of the
weather outlook, with only the vaguest notion of the outfit he would need,