style="font-size:15px;"> His consciousness, still half submerged in sleep, whispered to him that something strange was happening outdoors. Sounds, unusual yet familiar, moved through his head in one direction, then the other, like falling stars whistling as they crossed paths. Fuzzy ideas outlined in gray rose yawning from their slumber. Cautiously, Quentin cracked open his eyes, and with a certain reluctance, observed that the room was awash in a dismal, grayish half-light that was filtering through the curtains. In a supreme effort to extricate himself from the tangled web of sleep, he now understood what extraordinary event was taking place: it was raining, and the sound of the traffic’s wet wake on the asphalt Ring wafted all the way up to his bedroom.
Relieved at having identified this sound whose mystery had been making him anxious, he opened his eyes more resolutely. The vague fear he’d experienced, the muddled images of a hopeless war that surfaced from this morning’s final nightmare, had completely vanished, giving way to a profound sense of well-being. So, it was raining. And with that dim light seeping in from behind the curtains came Europe—good old Europe, friendly and familiar, filling his room. But the mirage gradually faded, and things once again assumed their normal shape. It was the first rain of the season, the first rain he had witnessed since his arrival in Tahas, and that was all it was. He sat up, pulling the covers over him, and turned to the thermos on his night table, which had sat ready since the previous evening to provide the comfort of hot coffee as soon as he woke.
The sudden intrusion of Europe into his bedroom that morning in Tahas, the first day of rain, had forced him to occupy two contradictory worlds at once, creating a kind of hiatus in his existence. When he saw that misty, subdued light, which reminded him so keenly of Europe, time stood still, the way a pendulum stops for just a heartbeat. Then, the radio’s droning the day’s news, the warm smell of coffee, the lamp lit next to the bed, all these unimportant and comforting things grew more reassuring. Thanks to them, the great pendulum was once again set in motion.
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