He also knew that something unusual was happening, though he couldn’t have said what, something missing, a lack, rather than something too much, and when he had roused up sufficiently he realized that what had disturbed him was the silence surrounding the house after the storm that had been raging for days, as though all at once the universe had ceased to vibrate. There was a ray of light under the door into the study, he could see it through the tiny slit between his eyelids. To see the time by his alarm clock he would have to turn his head, and he didn’t feel like moving. He listened. There was someone moving in the next room, without excessive caution, not furtively, and he recognized the sound of logs being dumped on the hearth and the familiar crackle of the kindling. When the smell of the burning wood began to reach his nostrils, not before, he called out: “Emile!” The chauffeur opened the door; he had not yet shaved or put on his white jacket, and the sleepless night had clouded his eyes.
