I remembered similar afternoons, years before and the present seemed to be that past, as if the glowing heat had effaced time and had stifled all other days beneath its brooding wings.
The room next to mine was almost dark.

They had closed the shutters.
Through the double curtains made out of some thin material I saw the window streaked with shining bars, like the grating in front of a fire.
In the torrid silence of the house, in the large slumber it enclosed, bursts of laughter mounted and broke, voices died away, as they had the day before and as they always would.
From out of these remoter sounds emerged the distinct sound of footsteps, coming nearer and nearer.

I propped myself up against the wall and looked.

The door of the Room opened, as if pushed in by the flood of light that streamed through it, and two tiny shadows appeared, engulfed in the brightness.
They acted as though they were being pursued.

They hesitated on the threshold, the doorway making a frame around those little creatures.
And then they entered.
The door closed.