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"I'd been too softened by staying indoors on hot days like this

"I waited until h the open doorway, the door itself having been pushed aside

" 'Fearless squatters,' I thought, and, as I noted that the door contained a big rectangle of leaded glass, glass that was clean, I was outraged But I also had the strong sense that no one else was in this house

"As for the room before me, it was perfectly circular and its unbroken surround of arched s appeared to be bare of any covering at all A stairway to the far left led to the floor above, and to the far right was a big heavily rusted iron fireplace, rectangular in shape with a rising chi iron doors It was chock-full of half-burnt wood and ashes The ashes were spilt out on the floor

In the center of the rooreat marble desk upon an iron fraold The style I mean here is what people today call a director's chair But it's a style as old as Rome

"Of course I went iuration of old cylinder, a nest of tall thick candles all old plate and a casual heap of paperback books

"I fanned out the books and perused their covers They ranged froantly call popular fiction to books on anthropology, sociology and modern philosophy Camus, Sartre, de Sade, Kafka There was a world atlas and a dictionary and several picture dictionaries for children, and also a pocket-size history of ancient Sumer

"I checked the copyright dates in a few of these books And I also glanced at the prices This was all recent, though most were noollen and soft from the humidity of the swamp

"The wicks of the candles were black and the pool of wax that surrounded theued that they had been burnt down quite a ways

"I was shocked and intrigued I had a squatter who came here to read I had a squatter arold chair, how handsome it ith its soft brown leather seat and back, and its crossed legs, and its ornately carved arms One little test with old Same with the plate and cylinder which held the pens

" 'Same as the mausoleum outside,' I whispered (I always talk out loud to old ¡¯

"And then there was the dark multicolored marble of the desk, and the siht

"A squatter with taste, and intell

ectual interests! But how did he or she get here, and what had this to do with the attacks of dizziness I had felt as I proceeded? What had this to do with anything but trespassing, as far as I knew?

"I gazed about me at the open s I saw the stains of rain on the floor I saw the flickering greenery I felt faint again and batted at ato drive me mad