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I believed him to be unmanned. But he pointed an ever more menacing finger at me. He reasoned with an ironic guile I should not have thought him capable of. “Of course, you have lain with her. You bedded the beast. Now I understand!” I had simply attempted to offer a reasonable solution, to parley for peace so we might save our lives. However, he had arrived at an accurate conclusion through false logic. “Your amorous inclinations do not coincide with mine,” I said in the most diplomatic tone I could muster. “You have had your way with her! You have possessed her. I knew it, I knew it since the first day I laid eyes on you, since the first day you set foot in this lighthouse. I knew, sooner or later, you would stab me in the back.” Was he truly bothered that we were lovers? I doubt it. The accusation was just an excuse to vent his loathing. No, I was not guilty of adultery. I had committed a far graver abomination. My words had shattered his simplistic universe, uncluttered by nuance. That world had been dependent on a black-and-white absolutism to survive. It was fear, not hate, which caused him to beat me as if his rifle barrel were a truncheon. He feared that his toads might somehow resemble us, and was terrified of their making reasonable demands. Listening to them should oblige us to set down our weapons. That rifle expressed itself with more eloquence than any speech as it landed on my skull and ribs. Gruner, Gruner, had gone so far in his attempts to distance himself from the beasts that he had turned into the worst toad imaginable. It remains a mystery to me how I managed to escape down the trapdoor. I reeled and tumbled down to the ground. Gruner followed behind, roaring like a gorilla. His fists pounded me with staggering velocity. They fell like hammer blows. Fortunately, my thick layers of clothing blunted the punches a bit. Unsatisfied with the thrashing, Gruner seized me by the collar with his two hands. He battered my body against the wall again and again. It was only a matter of time before he smashed my skull or spinal column. His brutality reduced me to the level of a rat. My only hope was to tear out his eyes. And yet, as soon as Gruner sensed my fingers pawing his face, I was thrown to the ground. He set to booting me with his elephant-sized feet. Dragging myself away, I chanced to turn around and saw the axe poised in the air. “Gruner, stop! You are no assassin!” He was not listening. I went numb there, on the brink of death. Scenes from an old and inconsequential dream flitted through my mind’s eye. Just as Gruner lifted the axe, an inexplicable thing happened. His features were lit up by a combined flash of debility and intelligence, like a meteorite coursing across the sky. He still held the weapon aloft with the doomed happiness of a scientist who has scorched his retinas in order to discover exactly how long the human eye can stare at the sun. “Love, love,” he said. He lowered the axe in a gesture of sweet sadness. He resembled a father quietly closing the door on his sleeping children. “Love, love,” he repeated softly, a hint of a smile on his lips. All at once, he reverted to his old savage self. But I no longer existed. He turned his back to me and opened the lighthouse door. I could hardly credit what was happening. A Sitauca immediately tried to enter the lighthouse and was met with the axe chop that had been meant for me. Gruner snatched up a log with his other hand, grasping it like a club, and strode outside. “Gruner!” I drew near the threshold. “Come back to the lighthouse!” He ran along the rocks in a straight line. Then he leaped into the air, his arms outspread. For a moment, I had the impression that he was flying. The Sitauca assailed him from all sides. They emerged from the darkness, shrieking in murderously gleeful tones the likes of which I had never known. Several jumped on top of him and yet Gruner managed to slip away with one agile somersault. He soon became the centre of a wheel, keeping the Sitauca at bay by wielding the log and axe like little windmills. The clamour increased when a Sitauca leaped onto his back. Gruner made a woeful attempt at maiming the beast. He lost vital seconds in doing so and the circle tightened. Gruner kept the beasts at bay by striking the air, oblivious to the wounds the monster around his neck was inflicting on him. They would show no mercy. There was no more time to waste. I climbed the stairs, one hand on the railing and the other clutching at my side, which pained me cruelly from the blows. A rifle lay nearby. I went out onto the balcony with the weapon in my hands. They were gone. Neither Gruner nor a single Sitauca was in sight. Only a glacial wind broke the utter silence. “Gruner!” I stubbornly called into the void. “Gruner, Gruner!” He was not there; nor would he ever come back.