I know I was wrong to turn on the light, startling them with its unaccustomed glare, though no one else would have thought it such a terrible thing to do. From the moment I decided to do it, though, something told me I shouldn’t. But everything, in their presence, acquired gravity, a sense of parting, of bitter oblivion, of mysterious, ineffable ways. To make myself feel better, I thought of how some people can be wounded forever by the slightest look. Others, though, may have their hearts touched, their most hidden pains revealed, be reminded of a name they were once called, and simply smile, as if it would take much more to hurt them. But not them. Whenever I stood up suddenly, or one of them said, “It’s Monday,” it was as if something fled in fright from the scraping of my chair, or as if we had to meditate for a while on it being Monday, placing it among important days with promised candles, because it came from far away, laden with red, foreboding signs, so they could claim it as a premonition.
I also knew, when I visited them, that rather than having them within reach of my hand and my voice, what interested me most was to keep watch on them. To keep watch on them uninterrupted, even if they sat in the same place all night, smoking incessantly. There was always a chance of a subtle change; one of them would stop watching the smoke, another might say something about a mirror or a marble staircase, and I could collect those words as if they were the secret key to other episodes they hadn’t yet revealed to me.
I shouldn’t have done it, though, and later it was useless to tell myself so, useless to try to explain myself, in the hope someone might ask me why I had acted that way, only for me to remain silent, since no one else knew that house, or their faces lined up in a row. Of course, a stranger, someone with no attachment to them—not to the way I might describe them, nor to a certain kind of sadness, someone who, at the very least, had some respect for the vague outline of a wish, for a favorite flower, for a yearning for rain—might consider it all to be useless and far-fetched, my suspicions excessive. But I was consumed.
Sometimes, back at my house, I would toss a book onto my bed, have a drink of water, or laugh just as I used to, and I felt the three faces crossing the street to admonish me, or to tell me I was making gains. I knew if the faces crossed too often, I could always escape. I needed only to expose them, and perhaps smile, as if their faces had come to an end. But that was a long way ahead. The mere thought of smiling after telling someone about them saddened me, as if I’d been asked to describe the face of someone who’d died.
One evening, I decided it wasn’t enough; it didn’t suffice to spy on them, or to sit with them so I could watch them. Nor was it possible for me to visit them more often. And at that moment I had a thought of which I’d never believed myself capable, as if I hated them, as if I’d wanted to humiliate them, to throw them into disarray forever, force them to banish me, and for their hatred to pursue me for the rest of their lives, when in fact I loved them so much that at that precise moment I would have done anything they’d asked.
We were in the drawing room. It was almost time for me to go home. The lamp they always used scarcely lit the room’s corners, but its dim light fell on the three faces, and was magnified by them. One of them recalled a blue dress stored away in a trunk. She seemed to be enjoying the memory, as night drew on. I thought the blue dress must have suited her well, much better than those dark, charcoal grays they’d worn ever since I met them. I thought their dresses might be to blame for many things they said, or that they at least were a change of topic. Because even if they said words like “street,” or “station,” those words always gained a new meaning in their mouths. When other people spoke of such things, everything stayed calm; too calm. But when I heard her mention the blue dress, I sensed the difference at once. I believe the idea began in that moment, on some breezy boulevard she must have walked along, on some balcony she had looked out from—free from the weight of her mahogany wardrobe, burdened by such dark colors—her arms adorned with bracelets, as someone came around a corner. I wanted to see her more clearly, to see how she looked when she said, “blue dress,” beneath the overhead light.
Unnoticed by them, and in the silence they seemed to let fall and be filled with a sad, mothless dust, I looked around me, to see if I could find the switch. The chandelier hanging from the ceiling had four lights. I had never seen it lit. I thought I could say my goodbyes, and press the switch as if by mistake, distracted. The blue dress floated in the distance, beckoning me from above their faces, shouting at me, laughing, descending a marble staircase, hiding behind a column, leaning over to tend damp ferns, giving me the strength to look at them squarely. Then, almost automatically, since I’d already decided, I got up and walked towards the door. I remember murmuring, “See you tomorrow,” and my voice seemed to say it as if many things should be resolved by the time I saw them again, and when they answered, “See you tomorrow, God willing,” I stepped away, towards the door, pretended to have forgotten something, and, leaning on the wall with one hand, I pressed the switch.
The drawing room lit up with a glare that startled me, too. I managed to force myself to murmur, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” But it was too late to forget. I would never be able to forget it, because the room seemed to fill with blue dresses, with uncovered arms, bare necks, but most of all, with something cool, endlessly cool, and when I looked at them, one by one, it was as if, in a dark room, their three white faces—waxen, framed with lightly starched lace, and gathered in a beautiful vigil—had been cast by a spotlight onto a screen.
She flinched and lifted a hand to her throat, as if to clutch at a necklace, and then she cried:
“Turn the light off! You should be ashamed!”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured again, and, without touching the switch, I fled from the room, determined not to come back, since it would be impossible for their faces to have a more beautiful ending.