Ludwik took charge when, returning from the office, he heard the whole story. Disgusted, he mumbled “what savagery,” he hugged Lena and then proceeded to bury the cat in the ditch. I loafed around . . . it was out of the question to study for my exams, I went out on the road, came back, wandered about in the little garden. From a distance, cautiously, so no one would notice, I had a look at the spruce, and at the trunk that Roly-Poly had pounded, at the door to Katasia’s room, at the place around the corner of the house where I stood when I heard the din from the second floor . . . in those places and things, in the juxtaposition of those places and things, was hidden the path that had led me to the strangling, if I could appropriately decipher the arrangement of those places and things, I might find out the truth about my having strangled the cat. I even walked into the kitchen on some pretext to check up on Katasia’s mouth one more time. But the trouble was that there was so much of everything, the labyrinth was expanding, lots of things, lots of places, lots of events, isn’t it so that every pulsation of our life is composed of billions of trifles, what is one to do?
