The House of a Spanish Dog 163
I decide to leave the house and go home. Perhaps I’ll call again one of these days and meet the real owner. Still, I feel a little uneasy about having entered the house while it was empty and now leaving while it is still empty. On second thoughts, perhaps I’d better wait until he comes back. I watch the water gushing out of the basin and light another cigarette. For some time I stand there gazing at the water. Now that I really absorb myself in it, I seem to hear some sort of music coming from the distance. I listen with admiration and rapture. Can it be that music is actually coming from the depths of this constantly gushing water? The owner of such an unusual house must be an extremely eccentric individual…. Wait! Is it possible that I have become a sort of Rip Van Winkle? Shall I return home to find that my wife has turned into an old woman? I imagine myself leaving the forest and asking a passing peasant where the village of Kurosaka is. “Kurosaka?” he answers. “There’s no such place in these parts.” A queer feeling comes over me and I decide to hurry home at once.
I go to the door and whistle for Frate. The Spanish dog, who seems to have been following my every moment, now gazes at me as I prepare to leave. I become frightened. Perhaps that dog has only been pretending to be gentle, and now that he sees me going he may jump on me from behind and bite me. I wait impatiently for Frate to follow me, then I hurry out of the door, carefully watching the Spanish dog, and shut it with a bang.
Before setting out for home, I decide to have a final glance inside the house. I stand on tiptoe by the window and look in. The Spanish dog gets slowly to his feet and walks towards the table.
“Well, that was quite a startling visit I had today,” he seems to say to himself in a human voice, evidently unaware of my presence. He yawns in the way that dogs so often do—and then in a twinkling he becomes a middle-aged man in glasses and a black suit who stands leaning against the chair by the
