‘Excuse me, I forgot something, I’ll catch up with you in a moment,’ and the director gushed back into the cell; he approached Cincinnatus, and for an instant the smile left his purple face; ‘I am ashamed,’ he hissed through his teeth, ‘ashamed of you. You behaved like … I’m coming, I’m coming,’ he yelled, beaming once again, then he snatched the vase of peonies from the table and, splashing water as he went, left the cell. Cincinnatus kept staring into the book. A drop had fallen on the page. Through the drop several letters turned from brevier to pica, having swollen as if a reading glass
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