When Samson lashes his face with a long pale tongue, Rudolfo opens his eyes and crosses back into consciousness. We cannot really say that he awakens. He sits up on the bench and gathers his few thoughts. Miranda was here, he remembers. Miranda came back and now she is gone again.

Samson makes an odd kind of noise, stepping backwards and puckering his old white maw, emitting a startling woof. “Was?” demands Rudolfo, and Samson, by way of answer, turns suddenly and paces purposefully for the door of the Gymnasium. Then Samson heels about and makes another of the woofing sounds, and Rudolfo realizes that Samson is imitating Lassie. Rudolfo is willing to play along. “What is it, boy?” he asks, rising to his feet. His legs wobble, his tiny shrivelled stomach sends up a mouthful of bile, which he spits onto the floor. “Is one of the animals in trouble?” Rudolfo has been negligent in the care of his charges. He is aware (although he has not really acknowledged it until just now) that there are tiny feathered and furred corpses littering the house. So now he will be able to save something. Perhaps one of the moon-eyed bushbabies has gotten into some mischief and is dangling from a chandelier, or perhaps one of the birds of paradise, which are beautiful but as stupid as mud, has his head stuck down the toilet.

Samson disappears through the door and Rudolfo follows behind. They do not bear right, which is the way to the staircase that will guide one to upper levels and light. To bear left is to invite ectopia and shadow. There is no place to go there, there is no destination, other than the Grotto. So Rudolfo takes only a step or two in that direction and then he swings about—if an animal is dying down there, then the animal must die. But after he has turned, Rudolfo registers what he has seen. There was a hole of light in the wall, gaping and irregular, the kind of hole that would be made if someone had rolled back the giant boulder that stopped the entrance to the Grotto. He sneaks a look over his shoulder. His stomach throws up a thimbleful of vomit. The boulder has indeed been rolled back. Rudolfo inhales deeply and wonders what to do next.

He doesn’t wonder for long, although he comes nowhere near decision or resolve. Someone brings an old-fashioned wooden cudgel down upon his perfectly naked head, propelling him brutally over the cliff and back into the void again.