mething floated before me about a
secret treaty--a conspiracy.

The man sat quietly, and pondered. Why did he not carry his newspaper
as every other person carries a paper, with its name out? What species
of cunning lurked under that? He did not seem either to like letting
his package out of his hands, not for anything in the world; perhaps he
did not even dare trust it into his own pocket. I could stake my life
there was something at the bottom of that package--I considered a bit.
Just the fact of finding it so impossible to penetrate this mysterious
affair distracted me with curiosity. I searched my pockets for
something to offer the man in order to enter into conversation with
him, took hold of my shaving-book, but put it back again. Suddenly it
entered my head to be utterly audacious; I slapped my empty
breast-pocket, and said:

"May I offer you a cigarette?"

"Thank you!" The man did not smoke; he had to give it up to spare his
eyes; he was nearly blind. Thank you very much all the same. Was it
long since his eyes got bad? In that case, perhaps, he could not read
either, not even a paper?

No, not even the newspaper, more's the pity. The man looked at me; his
weak eyes were each covered with a film which gave them a glassy
appearance; his gaze grew bleary, and made a disgusting impression on
me.

"You are a stranger here?" he said.

"Yes." Could he not even read the name of the paper he held in his hand?

"Barely." For that matter, he could hear directly that I was a
stranger. There was something in my accent which told him. It did not
need much; he could hear so well. At night, when every one slept, he
could hear people in the next room breathing....

"What I was going to say was, 'where do you live?'"

On the spur of the moment a lie stood, ready-made, in my head. I lied
involuntarily, without any object, without any _arriere pensee_, and I
answered--

"St. Olav's Place, No. 2."

"Really?" He knew every stone in St. Olav's Place. There was a
fountain, some lamp-posts, a few trees; he remembered all of it. "What
number do you live in?"

Desirous to put an end to this, I got up. But my notion about the
newspaper had driven me to my wit's end; I resolved to clear the thing
up, at no matter what cost.

"When you cannot read the paper, why--"

"In No. 2, I think you said," continued the man, without noticing my
disturbance. "There was a time I knew every person in No. 2; what is
your landlord's nam