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With one sweeping glance that imprinted on my mind the details of this scene for all time, I went out and home

The boys were awake and busy when I arrived An old carpenter was already there, fixing the door which I had shattered with the ax

I gave to thecups, and she, sleepy and having just arrived, took it without a remark

I felt a tightening insidethat I would burst My body seemed too small, too imperfect an enclosure for all I knew and felt My head throbbed I wanted to lie down, but before that I had to see Riccardo I had to find him and the older boys

I had to

I alking through the house until I ca laho cain our instructions in the law Riccardo saw me in the door and

I had nothing to say I only leant against the door and looked at my friends I loved them Yes, I did love them I would die for thean to cry

Riccardo sawout, he came to me

"What is it, Amadeo?" he asked

I was too delirious with htered dinner party I turned to Riccardo and wound him in my arms, so comforted by his warmth and his human softness compared to the Master, and then I told him that I would die for him, die for any of them, die for the Master too

"But hat is this, why vow this to me now?" he asked

I couldn't tell hihter I couldn't tell him of the coldness in me that had watched the men die

I went off into my Master's bedchamber, and I lay down and tried to sleep

In late afternoon, when I woke to find the doors had been closed, I climbed out of the bed and went to the Master's desk To my astonishment I saw his book was there, the book that was always hidden when out of his sight

Of course I could not turn a page of it, but it was open, and there lay a page covered in writing, in Latin, and though it see the final words: