Storm in Shanghai [antikvár]

PART IMARCH 2 1st 192712.30 a.m.Should Chen try lifting up the mosquito-net? Or should he strike through it ? He felt desperate in his inability to decide. He knew he was strong really, but for the moment it was only a blank realization, powerless before that mass of white muslin which draped down from the ceiling over a body that was vaguer than a shadow ; from which only a foot protruded, the foot of a sleeper, angular but still convincingly human flesh. What light there was came from the neighbouring building : a great rectangle of pale electric light, striped by the shadows of the window-bars, one of which cut across the bed just below the man's foot, as if to give it greater substance and reality. Four or five klaxons rasped out all together. Had he been discovered ? If only he could fight, fight an enemy who was on his guard, who gave blow for blowwhat a relief that would be !The wave of noise receded : a traffic jam (so there still were traffic jams out there, in the real world . . .). Once more he was faced with the great shapeless splodge of muslin and the rectangle of light, fixed particles in a world grown timeless.He kept telling himself that the man must die. It was foolish ; for he knew that he was going to kill him. Whether he was caught or not, paid the penalty or not, mattered little. Nothing counted any more but that foot, this man whom his blow must paralyse before he could resist : there must be no resistance, or he would call out.1