CHAPTER X.

 Luis stared bewilderedly at her. She was desirable, more than he had imagined and for a variety of reasons. Her emotions had been real, he was sure of that, not feigned¹ for the purpose of taking the gun away. But she had changed again in a fraction of a second. Her face was twisted with an effort at self-control.

 

"What's the matter?" he asked. He tried to make his voice gentle, but it wouldn't come out that way. The retrogression process had sharpened all his reactions—this one too.

 

"The name I finally arrived at was—Luise Obispo," she said.

 

He started. The same as his, except feminine! This was more than he'd dared hope for. A clue—and this girl, who he suddenly realized, without any cynicism about "love at first sight," because the tapes hadn't included it, meant something to him.

 

"Maybe you're my wife," he said tentatively.

 

"Don't count on it," she said wearily. "It would have been better if we were strangers—then it wouldn't matter what we did. Now there are too many factors, and I can't choose."

 

"It has to be," he argued. "Look—the same name, and so close together in time and place, and we were attracted instantly—"

 

"Go away," she said, and the gun didn't waver. It was not a threat that he could ignore. He left.

 

She was wrong in making him leave, completely wrong. He couldn't say how he knew, but he was certain. But he couldn't prove it, and she wasn't likely to accept his unsubstantiated word.

 

He leaned weakly against the door. It was like that. Retrogression had left him with an adult body and sharper receptiveness. And after that followed an urge to live fully². He had a lot of knowledge, but it didn't extend to this sphere of human behavior.

 

Inside he could hear her moving around faintly, an emotional anticlimax³. It wasn't just frustrated⁴ sex desire, though that played a part. They had known each other previously—the instant attraction they'd had for each other was proof, leaving aside the names. Lord, he'd trade his unknown identity to have her. He should have taken another name—any other name would have been all right.

 

It wasn't because she was the first woman he'd seen, or the woman he had first re-seen. There had been nurses, some of them beautiful, and he'd paid no attention to them. But Luise Obispo was part of his former life—and he didn't know what part. The reactions were there, but until he could find out why, he was denied access to the satisfactions.

 

From a very narrow angle, and only from that angle, he could see that there was still a light inside. It was dim, and if a person didn't know, he might pass by and not notice it.

 

His former observation about the Shelters was incorrect. Every dwelling⁵ might be occupied and he couldn't tell unless he examined them individually.

 

He stirred. The woman was a clue to his problem, but the clue itself was a far more urgent problem. Though his identity was important, he could build another life without it and the new life might not be worse than the one from which he had been forcibly removed.

 

Perhaps he was over-reacting, but he didn't think so: his new life had to include this woman.

 

He wasn't equipped to handle the emotion. He stumbled away from the door and found an unoccupied dwelling and went in without turning on the lights and lay down on the bed.

 

In the morning, he knew he had been here before. In the darkness he had chosen unknowingly but also unerringly. This was the place in which he had been retrogressed.

 

It was here that the police had picked him up.

1 feigned   

a.假装的，不真诚的

参考例句：

• He feigned indifference to criticism of his work. 他假装毫不在意别人批评他的作品。
• He accepted the invitation with feigned enthusiasm. 他假装热情地接受了邀请。

2 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

3 anticlimax   

n.令人扫兴的结局；突降法

参考例句：

• Travelling in Europe was something of an anticlimax after the years he'd spent in Africa.他在非洲生活了多年，到欧洲旅行真是有点太平淡了。
• It was an anticlimax when they abandoned the game.他们放弃比赛，真是扫兴。

4 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 dwelling   

n.住宅，住所，寓所

参考例句：

• Those two men are dwelling with us.那两个人跟我们住在一起。
• He occupies a three-story dwelling place on the Park Street.他在派克街上有一幢3层楼的寓所。