Through the dark square to
the twice-dark building I passed, and found open the door of an
advertisement-office; but on striking a match, saw that it had been
lighted by electricity, and had therefore to retrace my stumbling steps,
till I came to a shop of lamps in a near alley, walking meantime with
timid cares that I might hurt no one--for in this enclosed neighbourhood
I began to feel strange tremors, and kept striking matches, which, so
still was the black air, hardly flickered.
When I returned to the building with a little lighted lamp, I at once
saw a file on a table, and since there were a number of dead there, and
I wished to be alone, I took the heavy mass of paper between my left arm
and side, and the lamp in my right hand; passed then behind a counter;
and then, to the right, up a stair which led me into a very great
building and complexity of wooden steps and corridors, where I went
peering, the lamp visibly trembling in my hand, for here also were the
dead. Finally, I entered a good-sized carpeted room with a baize-covered
table in the middle, and large smooth chairs, and on the table many
manuscripts impregnated with purple dust, and around were books in
shelves.
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