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XXI
Indubitably Emilia still had some importance in the commissioner's mind. The others dwelt completely on Miguel, or perhaps Miguel and Cornejo. Apparently the rest of us were excluded from this drama.
 I felt an urgent need to speak, to share Aubry's confidences. I knew that Emilia was in danger of being detained and perhaps tortured. I was convinced of her innocence. If we did not take advantage of my certainties immediately, it might be too late. Responsibility loomed over me.
But one serious incertitude delayed my resolution. I had thought first to speak with Emilia. In general I communicate with women better than with men (though, to be sure, Emilia was a young woman and I preferred the society of mature women.) On the other hand, my news might frighten her. I weighed it imprudent to confide in a person distraught by a secret terror whose revelation might injure me. I decided to speak to Atuel. The interview would be less pleasant, but the benefits of security and wisdom, so appreciated by those of us who aim always at an austere balance in our lives, recommended it. Clearly the links that bound Atuel and Emilia excluded any ulterior risk on my part.
I sought him in Mary's room, in Emilia's, in the dining hall, in the office, in the basement. I undertook a methodical round of the hotel's rooms. Aubry told me that he had not seen him; Andrea looked at me mistrustfully; Montes threw me from his room and threatened me with a charge of unlawful entry; the typist, abstracted and hurried, told me, "He's in Dr. Manning's room."
I found them sprawled in chairs, unpardonably engaged in the most inconceivable frivolity. Manning was reading the English novel which Atuel had taken from Mary's room. Atuel was reading one of those novels with the multi-colored cover that Mary had translated. On a table between them were strewn marked-up papers and pencils. They were annotations and notes from police reports!
If Atuel was lowering himself to such puerilities, he had to be unaware of the commissioner's intentions. I was certain of the necessity of warning him at once. Not without satisfaction I thought of the contrition the poor man would feel when informed of the danger in which his sweetheart found herself.
I confess that surprising disillusionments whose tracks -- now erased, to be sure -- did not scar as quickly as I would have liked still lay in wait for me. When I declared, "I have something important to tell you," it was apparent that Atuel was less interested in hearing me than he was disgusted that I interrupted his indecorous reading. I communicated the news without omitting a detail. He listened with visible deference, thanked me, and then immediately returned to his novel.
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