Other Voices, Other Rooms

by Truman Capote

A sound, as if the bell had suddenly tolled, and the shape of loneliness, greenly iridescent, whitely indefinite, seemed to rise from the garden, and Joel, as though following a kite, bent back his head: clouds were coming over the sun: he waited for them to pass, thinking that when they had, when he looked back, some magic would have taken place: perhaps he would find himself silting on the curb of St Deval Street, or studying next week’s attractions outside the Nemo : why not? it was possible, for everywhere the sky is the same and it is down that things are different. The clouds travelled slower than a clock’s hands, and, as he waited, became thunder-dark, became John Brown and horrid boys in panama hats and the Cloud Hotel and Idabel’s old hound, and when they were gone, Mr Sansom was the sun. He looked down. No magic had happened; yet something had happened; or was about to. And he sat numb with apprehension. Before him stood a rose stalk throwing shadow like a sundial: an hour traced itself, another, the line of dark dissolved, all the garden began to mingle, move.