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a moment, until he regained his equilibrium. The hard stone floor was uncomfortable. But it felt good to calm down and give his lungs a chance to fill up with oxygen again.
    His eyes had grown used to the dark. He looked around him, wondering if anything had changed. The glow from the street lights seeped into the rooms off the hall through the shuttered windows. Everything was just as it used to be. Time had stood still. The hall still made him feel claustrophobic, with its low ceiling and bulging walls. The cramped stone stairs leading up to the floor were at just the same dangerously steep angle that they'd always been, eroded by generations of worn-out shoes.
    The building had been renovated with great attention to detail, preserving all the strangely angled walls but eliminating the bedbugs and other vermin, and that made him think about poverty and depredation. He was contemptuous of the passion displayed in the untreated rough wooden floors, rag carpets, draughty single windows
 

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and simple tiled stoves. A surfeit of pathetic nostalgia, reserved for intellectuals and the nouveaux riches.
    As he'd anticipated, Jerry's trench-coat was a bit on the long side. It came down almost to his ankles. He buttoned it up all the way, then rolled up his trousers, slunk into the living room and took the sword down from its place on the wall. Slid it out of its scabbard and tested its sharp edge against his cheek. He could grip it firmly, thanks to his rubber gloves. He was on his way. It would soon be all over.
   Jerry must have heard him coming. He'd raised himself up in his bed, resting on his arms, wondering what was happening. His naked  shoulders gleamed faintly in the dimly lit room. He didn't have time to scream before the sword severed
his head.
   He left the weapon behind. He heard it drop to the floor as he ran down the stairs without a backward glance. There was no longer anything of interest in the bedroom. What he