Mark André ’s Reviews > The Burning Secret and other stories > Status Update

He felt her kisses and her tears, and responded to her caresses. He took them as reconciliation and gratitude for his silence. It was not until many years later that he really understood these silent tears and knew they were a vow, of this woman verging on middle age, to dedicate herself henceforth to her child and renounce adventure and all desire on her own behalf. They were a farewell.

They pestered him with their inquiries and their tenderness, but stopped questioning him when they noticed how embarrassed he was. He experienced deliciously the sensation that he had so despised before of being wholly a child, and he was ashamed of his arrogance of the last few days when he had wanted to dispense with it all and exchange it for the deceptive joy of solitariness.

How terrible the darkness was, how bewildering and yet how mysteriously beautiful!
[...]
So the great, dazzling, portentous secret was here, too.
[...]
They pressed their faces together. Edgar could not see clearly, but he heard a soft groan from the woman, and the man stammering mad, ardent words. A sort of sultry presentiment touched Edgar's alarm with a shudder that was sensual and pleasant.

How terrible the darkness was, how bewildering and yet how mysteriously beautiful!
Were they animals, or people, or was it merely the ghostly hand of the wind that wove together all this rustling and crackling and whirring?

How terrible the darkness was, how bewildering and yet how mysteriously beautiful!

... he wanted to fly far away, far away from those eyes that were upon him. He made for the door and in an instant was gone, down the stairs, through the lobby, out on the road. Away, away, as though a pack of ravening beasts were at his heels.

He sat very still, not daring to make the faintest sound, and raising the cup to his lips and putting it back on the saucer with the utmost caution, and casting furtive glances, from time to time, at his mother's fingers, which played with her spoon nervously and seemed, in the way they were bent, to show a secret anger.

His mother laughed. It was a laugh he had never before heard from her, a peculiarly sharp, nervous laugh, as though she had suddenly been tickled. It made a curious impression on the boy and rather startled him.

He’s a liar. He’s false through and through. Whatever he does is calculated and common. [...] I don’t know what he promised you, or why he is so friendly with you, but he wants something of you, too, mama, positively he does. [...] He’s a bad man. He lies. Just take a good look at him once, and see how false his eyes are.

The tumult of Edgar's conflicting emotions subsided into one smooth, clear feeling of hate and open hostility, concentrated and
unadulterated. Now that he was certain of being in their way, the
imposition of his presence upon them gave him a voluptuous satisfaction.