The ruins of his
mansion were going to become his sepulchre. . . . And the certainty of
dying there in the darkness, like a rat that sees the openings of his
hole being closed up, made this refuge intolerable.
Above him the tornado was still raging. A peal like thunder boomed above
his head, and then came the crash of a landslide. Another projectile
must have fallen upon the building. He heard shrieks of agony, yells
and precipitous steps on the floor above him. Perhaps the shell, in its
blind fury, had blown to pieces many of the dying in the salons.
Fearing to remain buried in his retreat, he bounded up the cellar stairs
two steps at a time. As he scudded across the first floor, he saw the
sky through the shattered roofs. Along the edges were hanging sections
of wood, fragments of swinging tile and furniture stopped halfway in
its flight. Crossing the hall, he had to clamber over much rubbish. He
stumbled over broken and twisted iron, parts of beds rained from the
upper rooms into the mountain of debris in which he saw convulsed limbs
and heard anguished voices that he could not understand.
He leaped as he ran, feeling the same longing for light and free air as
those who rush from the hold to the deck of a shipwreck. While sheltered
in the darkness more time had elapsed than he had supposed. The sun was
now very high.
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