The Realms of Gold [antikvár]

The octopus lived in a square perspex box with holes for his arms. He had touched her with his grey wet hand, and had shrunk quickly from the contact. Back into his box he went, as she into this rather nice hotel room. He had suckers all the way along his arms. She thought of them with affection and amusement. He was the best thing she had seen for some time, better even than the view of the bay. He had seemed quite friendly, even though he hadn't wanted to touch her, even though she didn't quite like the smell of formaldehyde that filled the research laboratory. The most intelligent of the invertebrates. Perhaps the octopus had no sense of smell. Idly, she reached for her perfume bottle and dabbed a little on her neck. Silly, really, to travel with such a big bottle. Her case was so heavy. But it gave one something to do, packing, unpack- ing. There stood a few of her things, though she was only here for a couple of nights - a bottle or two, a hair brush, a few books, photographs, talcum, a biro, lecture notes, her glasses. She had made her mark on the room. She never understood people who said they felt submerged by hotel rooms, that they felt extin- guished, annihilated, depersonalized. She had occasionally felt the reverse - that her self, suddenly put down in transit, was so powerful that it might burst through the frail partition walls and send all the things swirling. Towels, fittings, coathangers, things like that. On the whole, she was happy to be in hotel rooms. A little rest, one got there, from the strain of adjusting oneself constantly, putting oneself as it were under a shade, muting one- self, lowering one's eyes. In a hotel room one could look oneself at least in the eyes, throw oneself upon the bed, take a bath naked, and no harm done to anyone. In this hotel room, one could even have a drink without any effort. She was delighted with the little humming refrigerator full of miniature bottles and fruit juices and 9