disappeared. I disappeared because, after all, no one saw me. No one saw me put the piece of paper with the address into my pocket and look toward the morphinistes’ window. And no one heard the Biblical sentence: knock, and it shall be opened unto you; ask, and it shall be given unto you. Even I myself didn’t hear how loudly that immortal verse resounded in me, and I didn’t know on what distant false paths it would lead me.

      Chapter III

      “Why are you so troubled, Mrs. Chief? The Lord promised that He wouldn’t send a flood upon the earth again.”

      Mother didn’t pay any attention to Mr. Trąba’s unremitting arguments. She threw an oilcloth cape over her shoulders and ran out to the bridge, under which brown waters were gathering. I held her by the hand; the massive planks and stone spans shook beneath our feet. St. John’s rains had come crashing down a few days earlier. We glanced up, in the direction of the first bridge by the cemetery, and down, in the direction of the third bridge by the swimming pool. The world was the same in all directions. The swimming pool was missing, as was the cemetery. The waters had no top and no bottom. The waters were everywhere. The house a few hundred meters away rested in the depths, at the bottom of a grey ocean. We returned, conquering the elements. We removed our thoroughly wet cloaks in the entryway. Streams of water flowed from Mother’s cape. Mr. Trąba’s voice came from behind the door; he was finishing who knows how long a citation: “. . . neither shall all flesh, Chief, be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth . . .”

      •

      Mr. Trąba was almost always sitting at our huge kitchen table, but when the heavy rains, snow storms, and floods came, his presence became truly permanent.